


stand at the abyss, you fall to your knees

by a_novel_idea



Series: once we believe in ourselves, we can risk [1]
Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Abandonment, Anger, Angst, Aptitude Test, Babies, Choosing Day, Crushes, F/M, Faction Before Blood, Factions, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Genocide, Initiation, Non-Graphic Child Abuse, Non-Graphic Violence, OCs - Freeform, Piercings, Romance, Tattoos, a little bit of romance, abnegation, amity, candor, dauntless, erudite, non-au, simulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 56,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_novel_idea/pseuds/a_novel_idea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tobias leaves more behind in Abnegation than just his father. When his sister follows in his footsteps, he does what he can to keep her in Dauntless and out of others' hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

**Author's Note:**

> “When you stand at the abyss, you fall to your knees and you fucking grab for any comfort, any little thing to keep it from swallowing you whole.” ― T.A. Webb

It’s the morning of my brother’s Choosing Day.

Our house is tense, even with the absence of our father. The neighborhood is quiet, and only the drumming of heavy raindrops bouncing against my window breaks the silence. I can hear my brother moving around downstairs, puttering in the kitchen. He’s preparing our breakfast, just like he does every other morning; he’s always been an earlier riser than me. I slip out from under my grey sheets, and tug them back to order before gathering my grey towel to head off for our grey bathroom. I hate the color grey.

Even with my supply of hot water nearly doubled without my father in the house, my shower is short. I go through the motions to be clean and I shut the water off. The dress I’ve laid out for myself is Abnegation gray, just like the rest of the clothes in my room, and our house, and our neighbors’ houses, and their clothes, and their children’s clothes. The one good thing about this dress is, as plain and monotone and repetitive as it is, no one can see the bruises on my arms. 

My brother is already sitting at the table, waiting for me, when I step off the bottom stair. Breakfast is laid out, a simple meal of pancakes and toast and milk, though I notice that he’s taken the liberty of setting out the jam and butter and not the syrup. He always remembers that I don’t like syrup. I take the seat next to him, and he smiles at me, but it’s sad and hollow. He has dreaded this day more than I. 

“Whatever happens today,” he says quietly. “Whatever happens, remember that I love you, Olivia.”

“And I love you, Tobias.”

I worry what he thinks will happen.

***

Tobias and I walk to the Choosing Ceremony. We could have taken the bus, but we finish breakfast early enough to want the extra time to ourselves, even if wanting that goes against everything we’ve ever been taught. We leave our house, identical to those around it, and walk through the early morning downpour without an umbrella. We pass by two or three of our neighbors, who studiously offer protection under their own brollies, but we decline, and continue on passed the bus stop. Our presences will not be missed if the bus is as crowed as it has been on previous Choosing Days. 

The neighborhoods we must walk through to reach the center of the city, and ultimately the Hub, from Abnegation territory are factionless. The buildings are abandoned and broken, slowly giving way to the nature they once held off. We pass several factionless, though none of them bother us; I do not know if it is because they have decided to leave us alone, or because they know whose children we are. I would rather them bother us than claim blood or faction with our father.

When we finally arrive at the Hub, the rain has stopped, though we are still soaking wet. I take the pins out of my hair and let it fall down my back in bright red waves. I don’t bother to put it back up as we enter the building. The other Abnegation sixteen year olds have beaten us to the Ceremony room, so there is no reason Tobias and I should not take the elevator. As we ascend to the eighteenth floor, the floor where the Choosing Ceremony takes place, Tobias steps behind me, and threads my hair into a long braid. The hallway between the elevator and the Ceremony room are all but empty, and we step quickly to avoid being late. 

The room is arranged in concentric circles, and on the edges stand the sixteen year olds of each faction. They won’t be called members until each one of them make their commitment to their faction, or another, and passes initiation. Tobias squeezes my hand and slips into his space in line; I look for our father, and find him in the first row of Abnegation’s section, and join him. He greets me with a smile and a ‘good morning’, but I can’t think of a single morning in the last five years that has been good. 

It is Candor’s turn to lead the Choosing Ceremony, and the hall falls quiet when Jack Kang, Candor’s representative, takes the podium on the far side of the audience. He says his dues, the same speech that has been spoken at the Choosing Ceremony for as long as anyone can remember, and begins to call out the alphabetical list of each person taking place in the Ceremony. My brother will come after Daisy Dolmer, a bright eyed, apple cheeked Amity.

One by one, everyone in the crowd watches as each sixteen year old approaches the podium and takes a blade form Kang, cuts into the palm of their hand, and spills blood into one of the five bowls that represent each faction. Gray stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, glass for Candor, and lit coals for Dauntless.

Finally it is Tobias’s turn. He walks calmly to the podium and accepts the knife from Kang. He doesn’t stumble, or hesitate, and I hate him for having this choice. He is as calm as he has ever been in the years following our mother’s death, and I have the stray thought that he is the bravest person I have ever known.

I feel my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth when he slides the knife over his palm and dashes his blood over the simmering coals. 

Everyone in the crowd starts to murmur, a soft accusing sound that is directed at our father. I feel him beside me like thunder in my bones, loud and soundless all at once. I close my eyes and I feel cold, and abandoned, but I am glad, so glad, that at least one of us can escape.

My brother is Dauntless.


	2. paler be they than daunting death

I walk to school like I have every day for the last year. It’s a bright, sunny day, and I couldn’t be in a worse mood. Today is the day that all the sixteen year olds from very faction take the aptitude test that will show us which of the five factions we belong in. And tomorrow, at the Choosing Ceremony, we will decide which faction we will ally ourselves with, and the rest of our lives. It is a heavy weight.

When I cross from Abnegation into the factionless part of the city, I am joined by Harold, an old man born and raised factionless. He’d taken a liking to me the day after my brother’s Choosing Ceremony, and has walked me to school every day since. I am not afraid of Harold. I can speak my mind, and ask my questions, and be as selfish as I please without the judgment I would receive elsewhere. Harold will listen and offer his opinion, and I do not feel it is a duty to do the same.

“Good morning, Starshine. The earth says hello.”

“You twinkle above us, we twinkle below,” I greet in return.

It’s an odd ritual that we’ve repeated a thousand times over, and it is comforting. We walk for several blocks in silence, merely enjoying the company of someone who holds no expectations of us, or us of them. We pass the same buildings we do every morning, the same shattered windows, the same crumbling bricks, and if I take a deep breath I can almost pretend that this isn’t the day that will lead to the rest of my life. 

“Today is the day, hmm?”

“Yes,” I say. “Today is the Aptitude Test.”

“You’ll have to tell me what it’s like,” he says. “The other ones,” he means the factionless who were not born that way, but came to be so in one way or another, “won’t talk about it, like it’s some big secret.”

“It’s supposed to be. No one is supposed to know what happens until it does.”

“What’s the point of test you can’t study for?” he says testily, stroking the beard on his face.

“Spoken like a would-be Erudite,” I tease.

“That is where I _know_ you do not belong,” he says, pointing his finger at me. “No, you are a brave one; you do not belong with the Erudite.”

“And where do you say I belong, Harold?” I ask. I am allowed to be curious here. “Surely not in Amity, or Candor.”

“No,” he says again. “You are a brave one.”

***

The school is the oldest building in the area, made up of glass and steel; there is a tall metal sculpture in the front that the Dauntless climb like fools after school. I’d tell someone that I thought it was dreadfully ugly, if anyone had bothered to ask before. The building itself isn’t that appealing either, but it is what we’ve been given.

I am one of the first to arrive. Harold and I take a seat on the lip of the small barricade that surrounds the sculpture and I hand him one of the two apples that I brought with me this morning. Acts of selflessness like this, given to people that have proved they are willing to return the favor, I do not mind, but the rest of the world is take, take, take, and they do not give back. These are the thought that make me realize that I couldn’t survive a life in Abnegations, even if I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the same boring concrete communities. But I don’t.

When I have eaten all the meat off of my apple, I hand the core to Harold and he tucks it into one of his pockets; he will break it into small pieces later and feed it to the birds. When he is done with his he takes my hands and we say our goodbyes. This is not the last I’ll see of Harold, but it may be a few weeks yet.

“Goodnight, Starshine. The earth says goodbye.”

“We’ll wait another day for you to come by.”

***

My first class of the day is Faction Relations, in which a tart woman from Candor explains to us the roles and relationships each faction plays to the city and to each other. She’s a dull person. I take the same seat I have always taken, in the back with a mix of Dauntless and Erudite and away from the other Abnegations of my age. The Dauntless crowding around me, brushing against me and talking over me, and their constant noise makes it easy to ignore the last Faction Relations lecture I will ever receive. 

By the time my first three classes are over and it is time for lunch, I’m no longer hungry. My stomach has become a knot of nerves, pulling tighter every time I think of what could possibly be coming. It can’t be anything too serious, I tell myself, no one has ever died from the Aptitude Test. After lunch is no longer being eaten, we stay in our seats. It only takes the volunteer test administrators moments to begin calling names, ten at a time, one for each testing room.

I sit alone and concentrate on my hands. The first group is called, then the second, then it’s my turn. I follow the others in my group into the back hallway where other administrators stand by open doorways. Most of the volunteers are from Abnegation, though there are two Dauntless women as well. Other factions are required to send a volunteer as the rules state that one cannot be tested by someone else in their faction. One of the Dauntless must test me.

The first Dauntless to catch my eye is older than I am, maybe in her mid-thirties, with short blond hair and brown eyes. She beckons me into her room and closes the door. She’s dressed all in black, and she has tattoos that curls down both of her arms. Several rings hang from each ear, and a single silver bar adorns her eyebrow.

Mirrors cover the inner walls of the room. I’ve never seen myself so clearly before, though I notice that my dress does a rather good job of covering the bruises on my neck, back, and arms. The ceiling is a solid block of lighting, and in the center of the room is a reclining chair, like a dentist’s. There is a machine set up next to it that does not look friendly.

“It doesn’t hurt,” the woman says, and it sounds like a line she practices in the morning until it’s just right. “My name is Cate. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable.”

I slide into the chair and cross my ankles.

“Drink this,” Cate says, handing me a vial. As I inspect the contents, she attaches an electrode to my forehead, and another to her own.

“What is it?”

“That would be telling,” she smiles. “Drink up.”

I don’t remember what happens next.

***

When I come to I have a pounding headache and I’m contemplating making a break for the bathroom, or at least a trashcan. There are no lights above me, and no mirrors around me, so I am no longer in the testing room. When I can convince myself to roll onto one side, I see I am surrounded by a white curtain, and I figure I must by in the school’s infirmary. Another wave of nausea passes over me and a lean over the bed and vomit; it isn’t until I’m done that I realize someone already had the thought to place a trashcan at by bedside. The noise brings the nurse around, a calm Abnegation woman who is the spitting image of what our faction is supposed to be, and she lays a cold cloth over my head.

“Don’t worry about it, dear. Every few years we have one or two who are allergic to the test. The sickness will pass. You get some sleep, and I’ll send word to your father.”

I want to protest, but I can’t make the words leave my mouth.

“And your administrator left you this,” she motions to a sealed envelope on the table next to my bed.

“She said it’s your results.”

***

My father never comes.

It’s a small relief not to have to deal with him on top of the lingering ache in my head and roll of my stomach. He does send another man, also Abnegation, to drive me home. I can’t decide whose idea it was, but I doubt it was this man’s, though he’s never anything other than polite to me. The ride is smooth out of the city, until we reach Abnegation, where the good road runs out. The man drops me at my house, and I trudge up the stairs to my room without any dinner.

***

My alarm clock rings before I am ready for it to. Its five o’clock in the morning, far earlier than I have ever wished to rise. The sky is still asleep on the other side of my window, but I push back my sheets and blankets and slip from my bed. The floor is cold beneath my bare feet, and I trudge to the bathroom that is mine alone now. The tile is grey, the shower curtain is grey, the bath mat is grey, even the bags under my eyes are grey in the small mirror I’ve squirreled away and hidden from my father. 

I shower for twice as long as normal, taking small pleasure in using hot water that would be my father’s if he wasn’t, once again, absent. Once I’ve used our allotted amounts, I cut the spray and wrap myself in a grey towel. The walk back to my room is colder than the walk away. I stand in my bedroom and stare into my closet for longer than is necessary considering I only own one color and two variations of the same dress. I’ve never told anybody, but I have a pair of my brother’s pants and a black shirt I traded a Dauntless boy at school for buried in the bottom of my dresser. 

I pick out my highest necked dress, and, as a second thought, dig the pants and shirt out of my dresser. They feel awkward under my dress, and I have to roll up the edges of the pants, but no one will notice them under the bulky, unfitted figure of my dress. My shoes are the same shoes I’ve worn for the last several months, flat and grey, just like the rest of Abnegation. 

My house is dark and empty downstairs; my father has taken to staying at the Hub, in the center of the city, on as many nights as he can. The result has been a blessed quiet, and on his nights away this house, for all its monotone and dullness, becomes the sanctuary I never thought it would be. I am calmer when he is away, more focused, less bruised. I make myself a minimal breakfast, a bowl of bland grain cereal with milk and a glass of water, and, out of spite, I leave the dirty dishes in the sink.

Before I leave, I walk back up the steps to see my room one last time. I won’t miss it. The plain walls, the dead air that resides in the whole house, this place has not been a home for me in a long, long time. I take the only book in my room from the shelf above my desk and tuck it into the waistband of my brother’s pants. It’s old, and barely one hundred pages, but it is the only thing I wish to take with me from my old life.

Today is my Choosing Day.

***

I walk from Abnegation to the Hub, escorted only by Harold and his customary greeting. We walk, and we walk, and we say our farewells.

“Be brave, Starshine.”

“Watch out for yourself, Old Earth.”

They are not ‘goodbyes’, only ‘see you later’s.

***

The Ceremony room is already crowded when I take my place in the line of other soon-to-be initiates. I stand between two girls from Amity. The talk around me, ignoring me, and I am somewhat grateful; I could not manage a conversation now. Parents and their children continue to flood into the room, wishing luck before separating, the children to the line, the parents to their seats.

 _That’s all we are_ , I realize, _We’re just children._

It is Erudite’s turn to host the Ceremony, and the hall quiets when Jeanine Matthews, their representative, takes her position at the podium. She’s a tall woman, blonde and commanding and upright, and she smiles at the crowd like she means it.

“Welcome to the Choosing Ceremony,” she says. “Welcome to the day we honor the democratic philosophy of our ancestors, which tells us that every man has the right to choose his own way in this world.”

She pauses and looks around.

“Our dependents are now sixteen. And they stand of the precipice of adulthood, and it is now up to them to decide what kind of people they will be. Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it is the fault of human personality – of humankind’s inclinations towards evil, in whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world’s disarray.” 

I roll my eyes; this is still the exact same speech given at every Ceremony.

“Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.”

The two girls on either side of me high-five over my head and earn disapproving stares from the rest of Erudite.

“Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite. Those who blamed duplicity created Candor. Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation. And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.”

I realize my fingers have gone numb from the tight grip I have on my dress.

“Working together, these five faction have worked together for many years, each contributing to a different sector of society. Abnegation has fulfilled our need for selfless leaders in government; Candor has provided us with trustworthy and sound leaders in law; Erudite has supplied us with intelligent teachers and researchers; Amity has given us understanding councilors and caretakers; AND Dauntless provides us with protection from threats both within and without. But the reach of each faction is not limited to these areas. We give one another far more than can be adequately summarized. In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life.”

 _What about Harold_ , my mind whispers, _where is he supposed to find meaning and purpose?_

“Therefor, this day marks a happy occasion – the day on which we receive our new initiates, who will work with us toward a better society and a better world!”

There’s a round of applause, just like there always is, and Jeanine calls the first name. One, two, five, eight other sixteen year olds go before me. And then it is my turn. I step down on from the edge we are lined up on. I have not seen my father, though I do not doubt he in the crowd of other Abnegation parents. I refuse to look at him. My walk is steady as I make my way towards the podium. I do not trip or stumble. My hands shake when Jeanine hands me a new blade. 

_This is it_ , I think, _this is the rest of my life._

I stare at the blade as it rest in my palm, and I have the stray thought that no one else has taken this long before. I close my fingers over the edge and cut into my skin. It tingles, stings. Blood begins to pool in my hand, and over the quiet of the rest of the room, I hear my father whisper my name. When I raise my head, my eyes meet his, and my blood sizzles over the lit coals of the Dauntless bowl. 

I am not his daughter anymore. I am Dauntless now.

***

The Dauntless, both members and initiates, herd each other out of the Ceremony hall. They turn toward the stairs, and it seems like we fly down each flight, jumping and running and falling. We’re the first faction in the lobby and the first out the door. As soon as the leaders of the pack push the glass doors open the Dauntless begin to cheer. Whooping and yelling and celebrating like we were never allowed to in Abnegation. They start to run, faster and faster until the lines between people are blurred and I’m left with nothing other than the sense of moving forward. 

I hear the train horn as we near the tracks and I know what we’ve got to do. The Dauntless travel by train, though they do so by jumping into and out of open cars. This is the first step to our initiation; if we can’t jump a train we’re useless. The Dauntless tether us out in a single line along the steel tracks. I’m breathless, my heart is beating too fast, and I’m not at all prepared for what is to come. 

I’m the first of the faction transfers to start running, but soon enough the rest of them catch on. Each of the car doors are open and before I let myself think twice about it, I reach up and grab onto handle, hoisting myself up. I am the first initiate on the train. I turn around to see another initiate, a Dauntless born, lose her grip on the same handle I grasped, and I reach out to take her hand and haul her into the car. 

“Thanks,” she says strangely. She moves away from me to join the other Dauntless born.

No one else has trouble jumping the train.

I lean out of the car and watch the Hub shrink into the distance. It’s such a small task that we undertake for such a big change. I’ve left Abnegation for good; even if I decide that Dauntless is not what I want to be, I can become factionless and leave this madness behind. As a second thought I begin to pull my dress up, and one of the Dauntless born boys whistles at me. I pull off the last piece of gray clothing I will ever wear and hold it in my hands. When I let it go, it whips through the sky like an angry bird nad then it’s out of sight. 

I am not Abnegation anymore. 

I am Dauntless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Choosing Day speech is directly quoted from _Divergent_. I do not own the rights to it.


	3. despite what fear denies, what hope asserts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI for this series: I'm basing this Eric off of Jai Courtney, the man cast as Eric for the Divergent movie, because, well, he's dreamy. I don't think there'll be too much physical description, so feel free to imagine him as book-Eric as well.

It takes longer than I expected to reach Dauntless headquarters, a solid half hour, at the least. My knees are starting to cramp by the time the Dauntless born begin to stir, but I stand with them, taking my ques. One by one the other transfers stand, figuring that something has to be coming. I lean out of the train car door, not very far, but I am able to see little figures hurling themselves from the train onto a rooftop. It doesn’t look very safe, and the thought of falling has the potential to make me sick to my stomach, but I don’t let it. This is what I left Abnegation for: freedom. 

“Are we jumping?” a Candor boy asks over the wind. 

No one answers him.

The Dauntless born line up on the edge of the car, and I am right behind them. The first three jump, ducking and rolling onto the rooftop, and I am quick to follow. My fall is easy, and my landing is breathtaking. My weight jars my ankles and elbows, and the gravel on the roof breaks the skin of my hands, but as a whole I am able to stand up again. The Dauntless girl that I helped onto the train is watching me. There’s a strangled cry from behind me, and we all turn just in time to see the Candor boy who asked if we were jumping grab onto a small Amity girl as she loses her footing. The transfers release a collective sigh as she regains it. 

A loud whistle catches out attention and we all look to the man standing on a ledge in the center of the roof. He’s older than the other Dauntless I’ve seen, and he has hair graying around his temples. He walks across the ledge like it’s as wide as he is tall, like there’s no danger at all of him, or anyone else, falling and breaking their necks.

“Listen up! My name is Max and I’m one of the leaders of your new faction,” he announces to us. “Several stories below us is the member’s entrance to our compound. If you can’t muster the will to jump off, you don’t belong here. Our initiates have the privilege of going first.”

“You want us to do what?” an Erudite transfer asks.

“I want you to jump off a ledge,” he says, amused.

“What’s at the bottom?” the small Amity girl who almost fell asks.

“Can’t really say. Could be anything.”

I can tell he’s more amused by our hesitation than we are. I take a deep breath. 

_This is what I left Abnegation for,_ I tell myself as I push through the other transfers. 

Max steps aside as I step onto the ledge and look down. There are three other buildings that join with the one I’m standing on to form a square, and I can’t see what’s at the bottom. It has to be safe, otherwise every initiate would be jumping to their deaths, but that does not help my nerves. I take a deep breath, and turn to face the others. They’re watching me, but I can’t watch them. I close my eyes and I let myself fall.

I hear screams echoing through my ears as I fall, but I know it’s not me; my teeth are locked together. My heart is pounding and I can feel my blood speeding through my veins, and I land on something tough. I bounce a few times, and when I stop whatever has me cradles my body. Air rushes back into my lungs and I force a deep breath as I open my eyes. I’m lying in a giant net. A giant flipping net. A laugh bubbles up from my chest and by the time I realize what it is I can’t stop it. I laugh, deep-bellied and unrestricted, from joy, and relief, and, I think, from sadness. 

A hand is thrust under my nose and I grab it without searching for the face it belongs to. They pull me back onto solid ground and a woman asks my name.

“Olivia,” I tell her, and I realize it’s Cate, my Aptitude Test administrator. 

Her grin is predatory when she says, “Make the call, Four.”

“First jumper,” a familiar voice calls to the other Dauntless, shoved and piled into the spaces between the walls and hand railings, “Olivia!”

They cheer.

My brother doesn’t.

***

The others jump, one by one by one, except for the Erudite girl who asked what was at the bottom of the hole. She stays, and she isn’t anything anymore. First the transfers, then the Dauntless born, until we’re all standing on our feet again. I watch my brother. He looks like the same Tobias that left me a year ago, but he doesn’t feel like it. He’s somber, quiet, but so clearly Dauntless. When he turns I can see the edge of a tattoo peak out over the collar of his shirt. He looks good. 

The Dauntless begin to leave now that the spectacle is over. The others around me chatter and laugh and congratulate each other. I’m silent. Cate and my brother, Four now I guess, converse quietly for a moment before beckoning to our group. They lead us away from the jumping net, and down a lit tunnel. After a few minutes we stop.

“This is where we’ll divide,” Cate says. “Dauntless born with me. I assume you guys don’t need a tour of the place. But for all of those who don’t know, my name is Cate.”

Our groups separate but the Dauntless born don’t move away yet. Separated, I can see how few we transfers number; there are only six of us.

“Most of the time,” my brother says. “I work in the control room, but for the next few weeks, I am the transfers’ instructor. My name is Four.”

Before anyone can question the name that is also a number, all the anger and abandonment and confusion I’ve felt over the last year rises up and I can’t help but stride forward and throw my fist into his face. He stumbles backwards, and catches himself on the wall.

“What the _fuck_ ,” one of the Dauntless born whispers behind me.

What the fuck, indeed.

***

Cate leaves the rest of the initiates with my brother, and escorts me to the women’s bathroom. I splash my face with cold water on my face and examine the flesh on my knuckles. It’s red, irritated, but hitting him didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. I look at myself in the mirror above the sink. Cloudy grey eyes and outrageously bright red hair shine back. I dry my hands off on my pants and start to pluck the pins out of my hair. When I’ve gotten them all, thirty-eight at the end, my hair falls in uncontrolled waves to the small of my back. As a Dauntless, I’m allowed to think it’s pretty.

“So,” Cate says from behind me. “You going to tell me why you punched your training instructor in the face?”

“Didn’t punch my instructor,” I say lowly. “I punched my brother.”

“You want to run that by me again, transfer?” she says, pushing away from where she’s leaned against the door and walking in my direction.

“I punched my brother,” I say strongly. “It didn’t have anything to do with him being my instructor.”

“Huh. Do all Abnegation punch their siblings in the face upon greeting?”

“We’re special,” I grumble, and she laughs.

“So what now?” I ask, turning away from the sink.

“I have to take you to one of our faction leaders,” Cate says regretfully. “Honestly, this has never happened before, so I’m unaware of the steps to take. Four and I are your supervisors until you pass initiation, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you.”

“Fantastic.”

“Did you split the skin on your hand?”

“No,” I say, showing her my knuckles. “Didn’t hurt like I’ve been told it would either.”

“How many fights have you been in?” Cate asks.

I raise my eyebrow; I’ve never laid hand on a person until today. She gathers this from my look.

“Hmm. If you left a bruise, I owe you a drink. That’s a pretty nice hook you’ve got for never hitting anyone before.”

“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?” I ask.

“Damn right you are, initiate.”

***

Cate takes me to the Pit. It’s aptly named as it is a pit in the ground. It’s farther across than I can see and is topped by thick panes of glass. Rough rock walls, several sorties tall, surround each side, and shops for food, clothing, supplies, and leisure activities are nestled in hollowed out caverns all over; each of the shops are connected by rough, steep stairways that sport no railings.

The Dauntless are everywhere, loud and expressive and lively. A gaggle of children race up and down steep steps, practically falling over themselves. Blue lanterns hang in intervals along the walls, and their glow shines brighter as the sun sets. It’s a wonderful chaos. Cate leads me away from it all through a dark tunnel. When we spill out we’re in a dining hall full of even more people. 

A woman near the entrance sees me and bumps her friend on the arm, and it’s like tipping a domino. Someone starts to clap and then another and another until the whole room is chanting some kind of praise; even the Dauntless born initiates take place.

“Shut it off, morons!” Cate yells over them. I’m suitably impressed by the volume of her voice.

She leads me from the entrance, and things settle back down, but some of them don’t stop watching me.

“Why did they do that?” I ask.

“You were the first jumper,” she tells me. “And you punched Four in the face. And you’re from Abnegation. Roll those things into one package, and you get them interested.”

Max, the Dauntless leader who told us to jump from the roof, is who Cate approaches. He’s sitting at a table with two other Dauntless, a man maybe older than me with a few facial piercings and tattoos up his neck, and a woman, hair cut short and lines tattooed across her face. 

“Could we have a word, Max?” Cate asks, and leads us both away from the crowd and into a secluded little cubby. “I know how gossip travels around here, so I’d like to officially introduce you to Olivia.”

I nod at him, he nods at me.

“I don’t know what to do with her.”

“What do you want to do with her?” he asks, and it sounds more salacious than Cate intended, but she merely rolls her eyes.

“She punched her instructor in the face,” Cate says impatiently. “I don’t know what punishment that demands.”

Max sighs, places his hands on his hips, “Why did you punch your instructor in the face?”

“Tell him what you told me,” Cate suggests.

“I wasn’t punching my instructor,” I tell the larger man. “I was punching my brother.”

“Four is your brother.” He doesn’t state it like a question.

“He transferred last year from Abnegation,” I say defiantly. “Left me alone. It was high time I paid him back for it.”

“Christ,” he says, wiping imaginary dust from his eye, “How the fuck does Abnegation keep spitting out Dauntless?”

“Beats me,” Cate says.

“Set her up with community service. A couple extra hours after training every day for a week. I think the nursery needs some help.”

“Can do, skipper,” Cate says as Max turns back to his table. When he’s out of hearing range, she turns to me and says, “You are a lucky duck. He’s usually not so light with the initiates, especially the transfers. C’mon, let’s get something to eat.”

“What? That’s it?”

“Do you want there to be more? No, don’t answer that.”

She leads me to the food line, where she hands me a tray and proceeds to pile it with things I will not, and cannot, eat. When she turns her back to lead us to the table of initiates, I manage to swipe another bowl of banana pudding. The Dauntless born greet me like old friends, and the transfers shy away from me. So much for supporting each other. Cate takes a seat with the Dauntless born. I sit across from my brother.

“You two aren’t going to fight again, are you?” Cate calls from her table. “Last time, Olivia kicked your ass, Four.”

She says it like it’s been weeks, and was an actual fight, not thirty minutes and barely a scuffle. When I look my brother in the face, I can see that there’s already a light bruise forming on his cheek and the edge of his mouth. Cate owes me a drink.

“Olivia,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“Dauntless was my test result,” I say honestly. “And I wasn’t spending another day in that house if I had to leave society altogether and forage on my own beyond the fence.”

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

“Don’t be. If you’d stuck around for me, you never would have been able to leave. I punched you; revenge taken. It’s over and done and I don’t want to speak another word of it.”

“Are you sure you weren’t meant for Candor?”

“Bite me, Tobias.”

***

After dinner, Cate hands me back over to by brother, who immediately hands the transfers over to the man I saw sitting with Max, and disappears. The new man introduces himself as Eric, once of Dauntless’s five leaders, and tells us he’ll be overseeing most of our training. He leads us down several tunnels, all lit with blue lanterns at the ends and dark in between. 

“There are a few rules: you have to be in the training room every morning by eight o’clock. Training is from eight to six with a break for lunch; after six you can do whatever you want. You’ll also get some time off between each stage of initiation. You are not allowed to leave the complex unless accompanied by a Dauntless. This,” he opens the door that’s materialized behind him, “is where you’ll be sleeping for the next few weeks. You’ll notice there are ten beds and only six of you; we anticipated a greater number would make it this far.

"For the first step through initiation, we keep the Dauntless born and transfers separate, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be evaluated separately. After the first stage, you’ll be ranked together – ”

“Ranked for what?” asks a Candor boy.

The answering smile on Eric’s face isn’t pleasant. 

“You’re rankings serve two purposes; the first is job selection. There are only a few jobs that don’t leave you wishing you were factionless. The second purpose is that only the top ten initiates are made members.”

I feel like I’m the one who’s been punched in the face. There’re nineteen of us, transfer and Dauntless born alike. That’s nine people who become factionless; nine people who are out on their ends with nowhere to go and no direction in life. 

“Four of you will be cut after the stage one. The rest will be cut at the end of initiation.”

No one protests. 

Maybe I won’t be Dauntless.

***

I choose the bunk farthest from the door. No one picks the one next to me, but the small Amity girl takes the bed across from mine. The lights are off and I spend my time lying in bed, counting the minutes go by until I can’t stay still anymore. I slip out of bed and put my brother’s pants back on, but I leave my shoes. The floor is cold as I slip out of our room, and if anyone is awake, they don’t stop me.

The tunnels are still dark, but they’re deserted this deep into the compound. I head back the way Eric brought us, and I’m quite surprised that I end up where I was expecting to; my sense of direction has never been great. The pit is quieter than it was earlier, but not empty. There aren’t any children climbing the stairs, but small groups of adults occupy random spaces along the floor and in the odd shop. I hear someone laugh loudly, and it sounds like Cate, so I move away from the Dauntless; no one told us we couldn’t wander around, but that doesn’t mean they’ll like it.

I turn off into a tunnel that I haven’t been in before, and after just a few steps I can hear loud crashing, like swiftly moving water hurling itself over an edge. When I round a final corner, I find out that that’s exactly what it is. A thin walkway spans an underground river that moves through the complex. I walk out to the middle and lean against the railing until it sways, then back off. I can’t hear anything over the rush of water, not the instructions given to the transfers, not the other Dauntless in the compound, not the thoughts in my head. 

“What are you doing out here?”

I stumble when someone shouts in my ear and, for a terrifying second, I lose my footing.


	4. cross the threshold have no dread

My feet slide out from under me and I have the barest moment to think this is it; I’m going to fall over the edge into the river and die on my first night as a Dauntless initiate. I’m still completing those thoughts when my brain realizes that I’m back on my own two feet and supported by a larger-framed figure than I am. I’m gripping their wrist pretty tightly, and when I look up, it’s Eric. He isn’t breathing heavily like I am, and he doesn’t look panicked like I feel, but he lets me take my time pulling away. 

“Sorry,” I tell him as I pull away.

“Get off the walkway,” he says, pointing in the direction I came from.

I turn to go and he follows me. I don’t stop and he doesn’t say anything until we’re away from the river and back in the Pit. 

“What were you doing out there?”

“Thinking,” I say.

“Thinking about what?” he asks. “Throwing yourself off?”

I stop and turn to look at him.

“Is that what people normally do when they go out there?”

“Yes,” he says honestly. “A few people throw themselves over every year.”

“Why?”

“Not my business. But you, you throw yourself over, that’s on my head.”

“I appreciate your concern,” I cay dryly. I don’t ever think I was this sarcastic in Abnegation.

“Tell me now if that’s what you were going to do, so I can assign someone to watch you; if you die, it’ll be in training, just like any of the other initiates.”

“I wasn’t going to jump,” I say. “I was just thinking, clearing my head.”

“Clear it somewhere else next time.”

“Understood.”

I walk back to the room I share with the rest of the transfers. It’s still dark, and everyone is still asleep. Everyone but me.

***

I’m still awake when Cate opens our door and flips the light on. A few of the others grumble, but no one becomes overly concerned until Cate starts yelling.

“Get up! Up! Move it! This is the one and only wakeup call you’ll get! Get out of bed!”

I slide off of the bed and into my shoes. I’m the first one out the door, and the first one to the bathroom. I brush my teeth with the supplies they’ve given us, and I rake my fingers through my waves. I look tired. I clean up my things as the small Amity girl and an Erudite walk in; I’m still in the habit of not letting others observe me observing myself. Cate is still in our room waiting on us all.

“Heard you’re suicidal,” she says in greeting. 

“Eric can kiss his own ass,” I say snidely as I search for my hair tie lost in the confines of my bed sheets. 

“Yeah, I thought he was blowing smoke.”

“He snuck up on me,” I say as I pull my hair into a long braid, “and I nearly slipped under the railing because of it. If I was dead it’d be his fault.”

“Oh, goodie,” she says. “Our first pigtail pulling.”

“What’s a pigtail pulling?”

“Don’t worry about it, transfer. Not until you make it through initiation.”

***

“The first thing you will learn today,” my brother tells us, “is how to shoot a gun. Then you’ll learn how to win a fight. Since you’re already here, I guess I don’t need to   
teach you how to get on and off a moving train.”

He walks by the six of us and presses a small gun into each of our hands. It’s cold and heavy in my hand, heavier than I had thought it would be. After my brother left, and I made the decision to follow him no matter what my Aptitude Test said, I’d read about firearms as much as I could without making anyone suspicious. In theory, I can load it, shoot, take it apart, and clean it. In theory. With the actual object in my hand, I’m not so sure.

“Initiation is divided into three stages: physical, emotional, and mental. Each stage is not weighed equally, so it is extremely difficult, but possible to increase your ranking should you not do well in the first stage. Dauntless believes that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the inability to act in the face of fear, so each stage is designed to prepare you in a different way.

“This is information you may need later on, so pay attention.”

He turns his back on us and faces his target, a plank of wood with three red circles painted on it. He stands with his feet apart and his shoulders squared, and when he pulls the trigger, the sound is louder than I thought it would be. The Erudite girl beside me flinches. When my eyes focus on my brother’s target, there’s a hole in the center ring.

We line up along our own targets, and it’s the small Amity girl that fires first. The force of the shot knocks her back a bit, but she doesn’t fall. I guess I’ll have to brace myself more than I thought. I spread my feet, raise my gun, and set my shoulders. Someone else shoots. I aim, breathe, relax, breathe, squeeze. I feel the impact in my bones, shivering down to my toes. The reaction makes my palms itch. 

“How did you do that?”

I look over to the small Amity girl, who’s staring at my target over my shoulder. There’s a hole in the center ring.

Huh.

***

By the time our lunch break rolls around, my arms and shoulders ache, but in a pleasant, fulfilled way. I gather my tray, and load it with more banana pudding and add a few other fruits. I planned on sitting with my brother again, but when my eyes scan the crowd, he’s disappeared again. The small Amity girl, Azalea but call me Az, tells me to sit with her and the Candor boy, Harper, she’s made friends with. Apparently the wariness of the previous day has worn off. When we sit down the first thing I eat is the banana pudding. Harper watches me curiously.

“Don’t you want anything else to eat?”

I look down at my tray.

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like some meat, or, you know, bread, or anything that isn’t fruit.”

“I’m allergic to bread,” I tell him.

“Seriously?” Az asks.

“Yeah. When I was little it wasn’t even allowed in the house.”

“That’s kind of a strange allergy,” Harper says.

I shrug and eat my pudding.

“What about meat? Az asks. “You could have a hamburger without the bun.”

“I don’t like the taste of meat.”

“Is there anything you can eat?”

“Fruit,” I say, motioning to my tray. “Vegetables.”

“You poor, poor girl,” Harper says. “I’m going to eat another hamburger, just for you.”

“My stomach appreciates the consideration,” I say dryly.

***

After lunch, Four brings us to a new room. It’s just as big as the firing range, but with creaky, cracked wooden floors and dimmer lights. There is a chalkboard hanging on one wall and all of the initiates’ names are written in alphabetical order in a sloppy hand. Several punching bags line the opposite wall.

“This morning you learned how to fire a gun,” Four says. “Some better than others. But this afternoon you’re going to learn how to fight. Today we’ll go over the basics, and tomorrow you’ll face your first opponents. This is to prepare you for whatever threat or challenge could come your way, and you’ll need to be ready if you plan to survive initiation, and life as a Dauntless.”

He demonstrates several punches and kicks, then lets us loose on the punching bags. I’m less comfortable punching something than I am shooting something, which is strange, I think. The others catch on quickly, but every time my fist hits the bag, it feels awkward, like my body is protesting the action. My brother wanders through us, adjusting and giving advice, and when he gets to me he rolls his eyes.

He pushes my shoulder back, and turns my feet farther inward, then advises me to hit the bag like I got a second chance at hitting him. It goes surprisingly well; I can tell by the grimace on my brother’s face.

“Look at it this way,” I say lowly. “At least I hit you before I got any kind of training.”

“Your common sense frightens me.”

“Good.”

***

When we are dismissed from the training room, Cate is waiting outside for me. I’d forgotten about my punishment for punching Tobias in the face. She pulls me away from the other transfers and tucks my arm in hers, like we’re sisters, and leads me toward the Pit.

“First, we’re going to get you some new clothes,” she says. “Then I’m going to dump you in your punishment.”

“Why do I need new clothes?” I don’t really need an answer; I’m still wearing the clothes from my Choosing Ceremony.

“Smartass,” Cate comments, and leads me up a steep stairway carved into one of the rocky walls. 

The shop she leads me to is full of clothing is all different styles, enough that the thought of trying to choose between them makes my head spin. Among all the black, which is the signature of the Dauntless faction, is a mix of dark reds, and blues, and greys. When I ask Cate why, she says to me,

“Everyone likes a bit of variation. Try this on.”

She hands me a simple black tank top and pants. I slip behind the curtain she herds me to and change clothes. The change feels nice, even if I don’t feel quite like   
myself. Out of habit, I neatly fold my Abnegation clothes. When I emerge from behind the curtain, Cate nods at me, like I’ve passed an inspection, and hands me a pair of black boots. I hand them back.

“You don’t like them?”

“My feet are not that small.”

“I can fix that. Dawn!”

“Yeah?” a sleepy voice asks.

A blonde woman appears out of the clothing stacks covering her yawn with her hand. She looks at me and smiles.

“Well aren’t you pretty. Amity?”

“Abnegation,” I reply.

“Oh, you must be Olivia. Heard you popped Four good.”

“Thanks?”

“Dawn, do you have these in a bigger size?” Cate asks. “Princess here has feet the size of train cars.”

I stick my tongue out at Cate when Dawn turns away to look. She doesn’t have another pair, but she does have something she thinks I may like. They’re still black leather boots, but instead of short and clunky, they’re tall and slim and lace up to my knees.

“Why can’t we get stuff like this in normal people sizes?” Cate asks indignantly.

“Because they only make your size with the additional ego pocket,” Dawn says, and Cate says a few words I’ve never thought of repeating before.

“Alright, you got new clothes, let’s go. Punishment awaits.”

“Cate, how do I …” 

“Relax,” she says. “Every Dauntless is given an allowance of points each month to spend on things like clothes, and supplies, and leisure activities. The clothes’ll cost you a couple points, but as long as you’re not buying a new dress every day, you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t like dresses,” I say.

“Good. One less thing for you to spend your points on.”

***

The nursery, it turns out, is not for plants, like I thought. It consists of three rooms, and the children are separated by age group. One woman is trying to watch two of   
the rooms at once, constantly walking back and forth between each of them. She looks harried. 

“Greetings, Fanny!” Cate says. “I’ve brought you a slave!” 

I’d feel indignant about the reference, but Cate has yet to be mean, so I figure it’s meant to be a joke.

“Oh, thank the lord,” the woman says. “Cassandra has a stomach virus, and even if she could stop throwing up, she can’t bring it around the children. Who’s this?   
Never mind, I know who this is. Hello, my name is Fanny.”

“I’m Olivia.”

“Are you better with toddlers, or infants?”

“Uh…”

“Infants it is. They’re really simple. Cate watch the toddlers while I show Olivia where everything is.”

Cate takes her orders, and Fanny leads me to the other room. It’s painted blue and has four cribs and a rocking chair in the corner. There’s a small icebox and supply   
cabinet on one wall.

“We only have one infant right now,” Fanny says, beckoning to the one crib with visible movement inside. “Her name is Adele, and she’s upset by loud noises, which is why I can’t keep her in the room with the toddlers; she starts to cry when they make too much noise. She’s been fed in the last hour, but she really needs some human contact right now. Think you can handle that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am. The toddler room is right next door and I’ll be able to hear you yell if something’s wrong.”

“That’s comforting,” I say stiffly.

“Good luck.”

When it’s just me and Adele, I creep over to her crib and peak over to see if she’s awake; she is. She babbles at me and waves her arms. She’s chubby, like my neighbor’s youngest baby used to be, and she has bright red hair just like me, though her eyes are brown. She’s wearing a diaper and a tiny black shirt with the Dauntless emblem on it, a flame wrapped in a circle. I smile at her and introduce myself, just like I used to do with any infant I met in Abnegation. She babbles more and claps her hands. I scoop her up by her armpits and settle her on my hip, and she squeals.

“You are such a pretty little girl,” I coo. “And if your parents are anything like the Dauntless I’ve met, you’re going to grow up to be beautiful, and strong, and smart, just like them.”

I talk to Adele for a long time before she settles onto my shoulder and falls asleep. I sit in the rocking chair and rock us both, keeping her weight on my chest and off my aching arms. Time passes quicker than I imagined it would, and I’m talking to her again, softly and smoothly, when someone gently knocks on the door. I expect it to be Cate, come to tell me I can return to the room I share with the others, but it’s not.

“So this is where they stuck you, huh?” Eric asks.

“It is.”

“Cate asked me to tell you that you’re time’s up.”

“Why didn’t she come?”

“She’s sloshed,” he says bluntly. “And drunks aren’t allowed up and down the stairs. Too many fall off and die.”

“Sounds like the chasm,” I say coldly.

He rolls his eyes.

“What am I supposed to do with her?” I ask him by default of there being no one else.

“That Adele?”

I nod.

“Her mother gets off the fence in an hour. She’ll sleep in her crib until then.”

I stand up from the rocking chair, and Adele shifts when I so, so I pause. She settles and I place her gently on her back in her crib. It’s warm enough in the room that I don’t think she’ll need a blanket, but I stand over her for a few minutes anyway. I think I like kids. Eric is still standing in the doorway, and I have to push by him in order to leave. 

“Do you need something?” I ask.

“No.”

I turn away and open the door to the toddler room in order to tell Fanny that my time is up, and ask if she need anything else.

“Your Abnegation is showing,” she teases. “But no, thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When I turn out of the toddler room, Eric is still standing in the doorway of the infant’s room. I pass him and head back down into the Pit, intent on food. I didn’t have the chance to eat before Cate swept me up for my punishment, and I’m starving. There isn’t any banana pudding left when I get there, so I take my choice of apples and a bunch of grapes. I sit by myself , munching on grapes and thinking of how sore my arms are going to be in the morning, and what I’d have to do to take a shower before everyone else. I guess having years of experience as an earlier riser will finally pay off.


	5. how do you like your blue eyed boy

I’m in the shower before anyone else is awake the next morning. The spray is timed, so I wash and rinse quickly and then spend the next few minutes just standing under the hot water. I stretch my arms and back, hoping the heat will relax some of the muscles that are still protesting yesterday’s activities, but when I’m standing in nothing but my towel it doesn’t seem to have helped much. I slip back into my clothes, and re-braid my hair. I’m tying the laces on my boots when Az wanders in with Harper not far behind. 

“How long have you been up?” she yawns.

“Half an hour,” I tell her. 

“Ugh,” she grunts. “Morning people.”

Harper gives me a bleary eyed look and moves into a shower stall.

The cafeteria is surprisingly lively when I get there. I get in line, hoping to find something that I can eat, and end up with a plate of eggs, grapes, and a container of milk. It’ll have to do. I take a seat by myself, playing with my eggs and grapes. Cate slumps into the seat across from me, looking weary and hungover.

“Heard you got drunk,” I say in greeting.

“Who told you that?” she asks, never mind that I can still practically smell the alcohol on her.

“Eric,” I say. “When he came to tell me when my time in the nursery was up.”

“Why’d he do that?” she asks, swiping a bite of eggs off of my plate.

“Because you asked him too,” I say. “He said you were too drunk to take the stairs.”

“I was not,” she says indignantly. “I don’t even remember Eric being there.”

“If you don’t remember who was or wasn’t with you last night, how can you say you were sober enough to take the stairs?”

“I made it to my room just fine,” she says.

“That’s not what that scrape on your face says.”

She slaps a hand over the barely there mark on her face.

“I don’t like you,” she says, narrowing her eyes.

I push my plate of eggs towards her and offer my fork.

“I love you,” she sighs.

***

I’m the only transfer that has time for breakfast. Everyone else is blank eyed and sluggish when we arrive in the firing range. Four has placed a gun at each target station, and I choose one, check for ammunition, and slide the clip back in place. Az takes the place besides me and asks me to show her how to do that. I show her how to release the magazine and how to check to see if the chamber is loaded or not.

“How do you know all of this?”

“I’ve known I was Dauntless for a while. I studied.”

“I didn’t think this was for me until my Aptitude Test.”

I don’t have a reply, so she retreats back to her station, and I raise my gun to the target. I fire three shots in rapid succession, as rapid as I can with my hands still sore, and the holes in the target all place within the center ring. I’m pleased. 

***

When I step into the training room, each of our names has been paired with another on the chalkboard. I’d forgotten that we’d be fighting today. I’ve been paired with Paisley, the only other Amity transfer besides Az. She’s shorter than I am, but heavier, and that may weigh in her advantage. Az has been paired with Sarah, the only Erudite transfer left. Sarah is taller than all the other initiates, taller than my brother I think, but she’s just as thin and boney as Az. Harper has been paired with James, the other Candor boy who transferred with him. Harper is slight where James is heavy, but, of what I’ve seen, Harper can be much more vicious.

My brother calls Az and Sarah to the square ring taped to the floor in the center of the room. They’re both required to remove their shoes, to try and prevent too much serious damage occurring, and they square off in the ring. Both girls circle each other, hands in front of their faces like my brother showed us, and before I know it Az has Sarah on her back and blood is rushing from the taller girl’s nose. Four calls off the fight, and declares Az the winner. I decide that I never want to be in a fight with Az.

It’s my turn next. It takes me a moment longer to unlace by boots than it does Paisley to remove her Amity red slippers. I set my shoes to the side, step into the ring, and Paisley punches me in the face. I didn’t see it coming, and it makes my brain feel like mud, but I put my hands up and try to block the next blow. She punches me twice more, then backs up and I feel like I have the space to breathe again. I’d known that some of the Dauntless fight dirty, but I hadn’t expected it from one of the transfers, especially one from Amity. 

When she comes at me again, I plant one of my feet on hers, but she moves in too closely for me to return fire to her face. I jab her in the ribs, the kidneys, anywhere else I can reach before she pulls away from me. I follow her until she backs away, and when her foot crosses the line behind her, my brother barks at her to return to the ring. She has no choice but to advance in my direction, and I manage to punch her once in the eye before Four calls the fight to an end. It’s pretty satisfying.

***

Adele is again the only infant in the room when I relieve Fanny. She’s lying on a blanket on the floor and playing with a set of colorful squishy blocks. She smiles at me and waves her hands and babbles. I take of my shoes at the door and settle down on the floor to play with her. The door stays open because it’s stuffy in the room, and Fanny must agree with me because I can hear the noise her toddlers are making down the hall. There are several picture books on a shelf on the wall, and when Adele grows tired and grumpy of the blocks, I pick a few out and gather her into my lap. 

_“Once upon a time there were four little rabbits – and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter. They lived with their mother in a sandbank, underneath the root of a very big fir tree. ‘Now, my dears,’ says old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden. Your father had an accident there. He was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor. Now run along, and don’t get into mischief. I am going out. Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella, and went through the wood to the baker’s. She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.”_

I bounced Adele on my knee.

_“Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries; but Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor’s garden, and squeezed under the gate! First he ate some lettuces; and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes; and then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley. But at the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!_ The thing you have to understand, cutie, is that rabbits are very mischievous creatures.” 

***

Four days pass in the same matter: shower, breakfast, and range practice in the morning, lunch, and fist fighting in the afternoon, two peaceful hours with Adele in the nursery, sleep. It’s a constant cycle that I let myself get caught up in. Some things become easier, like rising early, and shooting a gun, and falling asleep at night, and at the same time, just as many things become more difficult: I can barely pick Adele up out of her crib, and I know I can’t lift my arms above my head, and it becomes harder to win a fight when everyone else is learning too. 

And in a very staggering moment, I realize it’s Saturday night, and Visiting Day is tomorrow. 

I put my spoon back in the banana pudding I’d managed to snag before heading back to my bunk; thinking that my father might show up tomorrow makes me sick to my stomach. I’d come to Dauntless because this is where I’m supposed to be, and because it’s not my father’s house. He’s not here, and I don’t want him to be, and there’s not a thing I can do to stop him from coming to “visit”. I can refuse to see him, hide in my room, but what kind of bravery is that? What kind of Dauntless will I make if I can’t even look what terrifies me the most in the face?

_Cowardice_ , my brother’s voice reminds me, _is not the absence of fear, but the failure to act in the midst of it._

***

I let myself sleep in on Sunday morning. Az is the only other one in the room when I wake up, and she’s still asleep in her bed. I gather my things and head to the bathroom, hoping that there will still be hot water. Paisley is in the bathroom when I open the door, and under the lights I get a good look at the still-fading black eye I’d given her in our fight. I have a matching one. She’s wearing Dauntless black like she disagrees with the color. As I move to occupy a shower stall, she shoves the rest of her things together and storms out the door.

The water is lukewarm at best, but it’s better than cold; I don’t need to use all five minutes. I scrub my hair and wash as quickly as I can, and I’m out and drying off with a towel in three minutes. I put my clothes on and resolve to buy more, so that these can be washed. After a week of fighting and shooting and babysitting, I feel more stable in my black Dauntless clothes than I did for a long time in Abnegation grey. 

When I get back to our room, Az is still awake, so I give her a few hard pokes until she rolls over and cracks an eye at me.

“What do you want?” she grumbles.

“You getting up for Visiting Day?”

“Fuck that,” she says, and rolls back over.

That answers that question.

***

The cafeteria is busier than normal when I get there, and my wait in line is a bit longer too. There are still enough eggs to go around, so I fill my plate, grab a carton of milk, and seek my brother. He and Cate are sitting at a table together, but they’re the only ones. I slip onto the bench by Four and dig into my food. Cate is making her way through a pile of eggs, potatoes, and peppers, but all my brother has is a steaming cup of coffee.

“If you ask nicely,” I say after I swallow a mouth full of food, “the nice people who make food will give you some.”

Cate snorts and Four rolls his eyes.

“Eat some,” I say elbowing him.

“I don’t want any.”

“Eat some anyway.”

“Olivia August, I will pour this coffee over your head if you try to feed me those eggs.”

“You have two names?” Cate asks.

“Yeah,” I say. I guess that practice isn’t very common anymore.

“What about you, Four,” Cate asks. “Do you have a middle name? Do you have a first name?” 

“Now look what you’ve started,” my brother grumbled.

“Not my fault you have a ridiculous nickname.”

“I can see how you two are related,” Cate says. “My sister and I used to snip at each other all the time.”

“You have a sister?” I ask.

“Lindsay,” she says. “She works on the fence, though. She’s smarter than I am; I took this job.”

“She’s prettier, too,” my brother says.

“You were raised better than that!” I scold over Cate’s cursing. “I’d call you by all three of your names if I didn’t take your coffee threat seriously.”

“Good thing you do.”

***

I stay in the cafeteria longer than Cate and my brother. Since the initiates have the day off, they have other duties to perform. I have two more cartons of milk, wasting my time before the inevitable. After I convince myself that my stomach will hold no more, I push away from the table and make the short trek to the Pit as slowly as I can. There are already families here, both Dauntless and other factions. I see Az, and though her family doesn’t seem too pleased with her, they’re here; it’s more than can be said for some. 

I scan the crowd, and a knot releases in my chest when I don’t spot my father, but I know that if I’m ever going to overcome my fear of him, I cannot look once and run; I must give him time to come to me. I choose a ledge a story off the ground and skip my way over to it. I perch there, making myself as comfortable as I can. Visiting Day is from dawn until dusk, so I have a long time to wait.

By midday my legs are asleep and I’ve given up on trying to stay in one spot; if my father does want to see me, he’ll come looking. I climb the steps to the nursery and am surprised to find that Fanny is already on duty. I ask her if it’s alright if I help out in the infant room like usual, and she gives me a strange look, but agrees. 

There’s already another woman in the room, and there are five infants, not just Adele. She hands me a boy, dark haired and grumpy, and I put all my concentration into making him smile. He’s too fussy to read to, and he doesn’t want to stay in one position, so I make a game of bouncing him around. It’s hell on my arms, but eventually he smiles, and it’s worth it. 

“That’s my boy!” I grin. “That’s the smile I wanted to see!”

“Olivia,” Fanny says appearing in the doorway.

“Yes?”

“There’s an initiate in the other room looking for you.”

“Oh, alright.”

I settle the baby, Nathanial, on my hip and bounce him down the hall to Fanny’s toddler room. Az is standing just inside the doorway, looking uncomfortable and worried.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“There’s a man in the Pit,” she says, “and he’s asking for his daughter. It’s Marcus Eaton.”

I sigh through my nose, and turn to hand the baby to Fanny.

“I’ll try to be back tonight, Fanny. Or I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Mmm hmmm.”

I walk away from the nursery, and Az follows me. I practically fall down the stairs, and if I’d have had to catch myself, I would have cut up my hands on the rough stone. The Pit is quieter than it was earlier, but no emptier, and I can see why. My father is talking to Max, and while both are standing respectfully next to one another, I can tell Max would like nothing more than to punch the other man in the face. Az stops following my when we jump the last step, and my father pretends to ignore my presence as I walk through the crowd. The other Dauntless, and the initiates, and the other fractions follow me with their eyes.

I stop a good six feet away, crossing my arms and waiting for my father to be ‘surprised’ by my presence. He looks no worse than usual, and I briefly wonder if he’s still sleeping in the Hub, and then I decide that I don’t care.

“Olivia,” my father says, and for all the world he looks like a happy father getting to see his baby girl again, but I know it’s a lie; that’s what Marcus is good at: lies. “It’s so good to see you, sweetheart.”

He takes a step forward, and I take a step back.

“You can stay there,” I tell him, “and speak just fine.”

“Olivia, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Marcus. Everything’s finally right. What are you doing here?”

“It’s Visiting Day. I came to visit.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” I tell him, and even though my voice is soft, it’s the only sound anyone in the room can hear. Every family and faction will witness what happens next. “I left. I thought you might have been smart enough to take that as the hint it was.”

“Olivia, I don’t understand. What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing that you didn’t put there,” I say harshly. “Go home, Marcus. And don’t come back.”

I hike the stairs faster than I ever have before, but I go calmly, and do my best to make it look like I haven’t just turn my back and ran.

***

I wander around the compound for a long time, losing myself in the sameness of the tunnels. Eventually I turn a corner and I’m back in the Pit, but the other factions are gone; Visiting Day must be over. No one pays me much attention as I cross the floor, but I still feel like eyes are watching me and judging every move. I leave everyone else, and I end up back on the walkway that spans the river. 

I know Eric has told me to take my thinking elsewhere, but over the roaring over the water I can’t hear myself think, and that’s what I need right now. I sit down in the middle, and dangle my legs over the side, but I make sure that I’m able to grab a rail should something go wrong again. I sit there for a long time.

This time I feel him coming, the walkway echoing with the vibrations of his footsteps. I look up at him at the same time he reaches my seat.

“Get off the goddamn walkway!” Eric says lowly, and I can barely make out the words over the water.

I climb to my feet and stumble when he takes my arm and all but drags me off away from the water. When we turn the corner and we’re in the dark between lanterns, he thrusts my arm away from him and I stumble again.

“I told you to stay off that goddamn walkway.”

“I told you I wasn’t suicidal!”

“And how do I know that hasn’t changed? Especially with that little spat in the Pit today.”

“You leave my father out of this!”

“Or you’ll what? Go back to thinking? I don’t think you’re listening to me: you are worth more to me alive than dead.”

“I’m sorry you get a smack on the wrist every time an initiate throws themselves off, but it is my life, and if I decide to do away with it that is no one’s business but mine! And if I decide that I’m done, then I’m done and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!”

“You’re crying,” Eric says calmly.

“What?”

I touch my face and my fingers come away wet. There’s no way I can fight with Eric while I’m crying, it just can’t be done. I turn on my heel and leave.


	6. to eat flowers and not to be afraid

Monday is the last day of the first stage of initiation.

All of the initiates, both Dauntless born and transfers, are herded into the training room. All nineteen of our names are written on the chalkboard, and eighteen of us are paired together; Az doesn't have a name matched to hers. After a week in the compound, no one is still in their old faction's colors. It's a sea of black that is only interrupted by hair and skin color.

Cate is moving people around, matching us like the names on the board. I am paired with a Dauntless born boy who is a foot taller than I am and three times as wide. He has a bar through his brow and tattoos on his arm. His name is Connor. He looks down at me and I get the distinct impression that he thinks he can snap me in two. He's probably right.

My brother walks in with Eric right behind him. Cate joins them when she's done, and they stand on the other side of the room talking in hushed voices long enough for my nerves to work themselves up into my throat. Eventually they break apart, and Cate and Four stand on either side of the ring on the floor. Eric steps inside it, faces us, and crosses his arms.

"Today is the last day of stage one," he says. "Eighteen of you have yet to be ranked. Those eighteen will fight for a better position than you're already in. Remember, four of you will be leaving, so this will be the time to try and change our minds about whether or not you stay. The person to beat is Azalea," Eric rolls his eyes at her name, and Az blushes, "She's in first place. We'll announce results after we break for lunch.

"Harper and Jenny are first."

Harper steps into the ring with a Dauntless born girl of the same height. They're both slight, and fast, but I don't know if the girl is as cunning or vicious as Harper. She punches him once in the nose, and I can hear the bone break from where I'm standing. I guess now I know. They circle each other, and Harper acts as if the blood gushing from his nose is barely an inconvenience. He fits in several solid shots to her arms and chest, and what sounds like a horribly painful kick to the abdomen, but she continues on, returning everything she takes. In the end, Harper wins.

It continues for an hour; Eric calls a pair to the ring, they fight, our instructors evaluate, and call the fight to an end I the one instance that a Dauntless born continues to punch his opponent even after the other is unconscious. The results vary.

James (T) vs. William (D) – William (D)

Jason (D) vs. Talia (D) – Talia (D)

Tamsin (D) vs. Paisley (T) – Tamsin (D)

Sarah (T) vs. Callie (D) – Callie (D)

After the fifth match, I realize that none of the transfers have won their fights, and that my name is on the board next. Eric calls us to the ring. We don't remove our shoes this time, so there aren't any precautions against serious injury. Connor's feet are massive, and I hope I don't get stepped on. We face each other, hands up and protecting our faces, and wait for one of the instructors to call the fight to a start.

"Go!" my brother shouts.

Connor hesitates and I take the pause to step in closer and swing at him. He blocks easily, but he leaves his face open as he does, so I use the opening to punch him in the face. He jerks away and blinks rapidly, but I don't think I've done much damage. He jabs at me and I dodge, but I make the same mistake he did and I leave my face open. He punches me in the jaw and it feels like hot thunder rolling through my bones. I kick out, but my foot glances off of his thigh and he uses my momentum to unbalance me. I land on my back and all the air flees from my lungs. I kick up with both feet and catch him in the stomach; now I'm glad we're still wearing shoes.

Connor stumbles back, gaging like he's trying not to vomit, and I roll to my feet. He's a little unsteady, so I kick him again. My blow lands on his hip and it's just enough to push him to the floor. He's recovering quickly, so before he can get off of the ground, I hold his arm to the ground with one foot, and press the other one down on his throat. He waits to see if I'm bluffing, and when he finally decides that I'm not, he taps my foot, and the fight is over.

I'm the only transfer to win a fight.

***

When we break for lunch, the nerves in my stomach have knotted so tight I'm not able to eat. I leave the others to congratulate Az in the cafeteria, and I head back into the Pit. The clothing store Cate took me to is three stories up, so I start climbing. Dawn is behind the counter when I pull myself onto the ledge in front of the entrance, and she's no more awake than when we were introduced.

"Hey there, cutie," she says. "Looking for something special?"

"No," I tell her. "I just need more than one set of clothes."

"Every girl does. Let me know if you need help finding shoes in your size," she teases.

"Thanks."

I wander through the shelves picking up a few more tank tops, a few t shirts, another pair of pants. In the back corner there's a section full of more feminine items: bras, underwear, makeup. There's a box of something I don't recognize sitting on the shelf amongst the shampoos, and I wander back to the front with it in my hand.

"Hey, Dawn," I call showing her the box. "What is this?"

"No!" she says, yanking it from my hand. "You are not allowed to dye your pretty red hair! You're not allowed to do anything to it!"

"What?"

"It's hair dye. Black hair dye."

"Huh. We didn't have that in Abnegation."

"Abnegation is all about being selfless, so it doesn't matter if you don't like your hair color. In Dauntless you can be more vain. Is this all you wanted?"

"I think I'm going to get another pair of socks."

"What about makeup? Have you ever worn any?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"I don't know?"

"Is that a question? Silly girl."

"Abnegation is about being selfless," I repeat. "I didn't even know what makeup was until I was a teenager and some of the Amity girls in my class at school started wearing some."

"You don't need it," she assures me. "You're very pretty without it. Makeup is about hiding what you don't want other people to see, and making them notice what you do want them to see. You're grey eyes would pop with a little bit of eyeliner."

"Thank you?"

"Set your stuff down," she says patting an empty space on the counter. She reaches around to ruffle though a bag next to her chair and she comes back around with a small mirror, and three black tubes. "Can I show you what I'm talking about?"

I put my stuff down and nod slowly. I've never worn makeup, but I've seen it do some pretty amazing things among the girls in my school class. One day an Erudite girl came to school and I couldn't see any of her acne or the scars left behind by it. She pulls a chair around for me to sit in and puts the small mirror in my hand.

"Look up," she says, and when I do she pulls on my face until my bottom eyelid has come away from my eye. She sets something to it and runs it over the sensitive skin there. "This is chalk eyeliner," she says. "You can put it on as lightly or as think as you want and it stays all day. It's usually best for the bottom of your eye." She does my other eye, then lets me blink for a moment. "Now close your eyes." The brush she sets to my eyelid is cold, and she moves in in a smooth stroke from my inner corner out passed where my eyelid ends. "This is liquid eyeliner. It's usually best for the top of the lid." After we've completed those steps, she holds a bristled brush in front of my eye and commands me to blink repeatedly. "This is mascara. It's pretty much just paint for your eyelashes.

"You're a gorgeous girl," she says. "Look in the mirror."

My eyes are lined all the way around in black, and the lines on the top flare out passed my corner lids. She's even colored my eyelashes black to match. And she's right, the black eyeliner does make my grey eyes pop. They look so much brighter not that they're not sitting against the pale color of my skin. With the makeup on, I hardly notice the bruises Connor left on my face.

Thinking of Connor makes me look at the clock on the wall. I have ten minutes before I have to be back in the training room; that's just enough time to run and put my new clothes in my bunk, and get back.

 _Well,_ I think as I gather my things and thank Dawn, _at least if I become factionless I'll have more than one pair of clothes._

***

"What happened to your face?" Az asks me when she takes her place next to me.

 _Shit,_ I think, _it doesn't look good. And I've been walking around with this stupid stuff on my face._

"Um, Dawn, the woman in the clothing store, she showed me how to, you know?"

"I like it," she says confidently and I relax a little.

The air in the room is tense. The chalkboard has been covered with a sheet so none of us can see where our names have been placed. The Dauntless born keep away from the transfers, spreading out across the room and muttering amongst themselves. My foot starts tapping, and it makes a floorboard creak, but I can't seem to stop. I'm not the only nervous one. Harper is chewing on his fingernails and scratching at the bandages laid across his nose. Az is intentionally taking deep breaths and letting them out. Our instructors are late.

The door finally creeps open behind us and everyone in the room turns to look. Four, Cate, and Eric walk in; Four and Cate look resigned.

"We've finalized your ranks," Eric says. "Remember that the higher your rank, the more likely you are to succeed. The bottom four will be leaving."

My brother moves through the crowd, and yanks the sheet away from the Chalkboard. Several cries, both of relief and despair, ring out in the crowd. I make sure to read the list very carefully.

1\. Azalea (Transfer)

2\. Alice (Dauntless)

3\. Talia (Dauntless)

4\. Olivia (Transfer)

5\. Jason (Dauntless)

6\. Harper (Transfer)

I stop reading when I find Harper's name. I'm relieved that he, Az, and I are still in the running, but both Paisley and Sarah are in the bottom four.

They're factionless now.

***

I don't know what happens to the bottom four, just that when Az and I get back to our bunk, both Sarah's and Paisley's things are gone. I separate out the pile of clothing I dumped on my bed and begin to fold it. Three more tank tops, two t shirts, another pair of pants, a new bra, a handful of panties, and four pair of socks. It isn't a lot, but it's what I need.

"You have new clothes," Az says from her bunk. "I want new clothes. Let's go get me clothes."

I laugh and follow her from the room. We race each other down to the Pit and then up to the third story. She scrambles over the rock easier than I do, but my legs are longer. We're racing up the final leg of stairs when Az drags me to a stop. She gazing through the entrance of a well-lit art studio, and she starts grinning before I make the final connection.

"Screw new clothes; they can wait! I want a tattoo!"

She pulls me inside and wanders over to a wall full of design examples.

"What do you think I should get?" she asks. "A bird, maybe?"

"I'm not telling you what to but on your body," I tell her. "It'll be there for forever."

"Can I help you?" a man asks wandering through another door in the back.

"I want a tattoo," Az says.

"I would hope so. This is a tattoo parlor."

I snort at the man's dry wit.

"What do you want and where?"

"I don't really know yet. What's not popular, but still good? I don't want something everyone else has."

"The tribals aren't too popular," he says, indicating a poster of hand drawn tribal designs. They range everywhere from a heart to a dragon to a lion.

"It's a little masculine for me," she ponders out loud.

"This is Dauntless. Everything's masculine."

"Good point. I want the sun. In the middle of my back."

The one she's picked is a simple circle with jagged lines representing rays.

"I can do that. Hey Eric," my head whips around to see Eric standing in the doorway watching us. "Tori's still working on her last appointment. I'll let her know you're here."

Eric nods.

"C'mon, initiate. Let's get you inked," he leads Az back through the doorway he came out of.

"Never figured you for ink, Abnegation."

"I'm not, Dauntless."

He smirks and steps further into the room. Standing in a tattoo parlor with him makes me examine the tattoos he's already got. Two separate lines of thick stylized blocks run down either side of his neck from the start of his jaw to where they disappear under his shirt; the same pattern is repeated on the outside of his forearms.

"Why not? You scared of the needle?"

"I'm not Dauntless," I say. "Not yet, at least. I haven't earned it."

My answer seems to surprise him. The needle does make me a bit wary, in fact, but the real thing stopping me from joining Az is that initiation isn't over. What if I don't make it? What if I'm factionless by the end? Then I'm stuck with a permanent reminder that I wasn't good enough, that I failed. I'll celebrate when I've done something to deserve it.

"I'm sorry," I say suddenly, quietly. I don't want the others in the back to hear me, "for crying on you last night. That wasn't like me."

"I hope not. If it is, you're a fantastic actor."

"I'll take that as a compliment anyway," I scoff. "I'm not usually upset like that, it's not who I am."

"Then who are you? Besides a disobedient pain in my ass."

"What is your problem with the chasm?"

"I don't like it when people throw themselves off."

"I am not suicidal!" I hiss.

"Then why go back?"

"Because it's loud," I say without thinking about it. "It's so loud I can't hear myself think, and sometimes I don't want to hear myself think."

"Take a train ride," he says. "At least then if you die I don't have to worry about pulling your body out of the water."

"I'm not allowed to leave the compound alone," is my answer.

An olive skinned woman comes out of the back with another man in tow and that stops Eric's reply before it starts. The man it sporting a new and irritated looking tattoo of the Dauntless emblem on his shoulder.

"Remember to wash it properly and keep lotion on it. Scabs are the enemy. Come one back, Eric."

"I'll see you when I see you, Olivia."

I think that's the first time he's said my name.

***

By the time is Az is done, my feet hurt from standing, and she's happier than I've ever seen her.

"Look!" she says, hiking up the back of her shirt.

"It looks good," I tell her, and it does. Az's skin is still sun kissed all over from the last sixteen years she spent in the Amity compound and the black of the ink stands out in superb contrast.

"I want another one!"

"Let's let this one heal first," I say. "If you get them now, there'll be nothing to look forward to."

"You're right. Let's go get food."

Food sounds wonderful, my stomach tells me, especially since I skipped lunch. The cafeteria is sparsely populated since it isn't prime meal time, but it isn't completely empty. My brother is sitting at a table by himself, so after I've grabbed what I can actually eat, I head over to keep him company. Az follows me, but then hesitates when she sees where I'm headed.

"Are you sure that's smart? Bothering our training instructor when he's not, you know, instructing us?"

"It's fine," I tell her. "Sit down."

I sit in front of my brother and Az sits next to me.

"Go away," Four says. "I'm not your instructor right now, so you don't exist to me."

"Be nice," I say, and kick him under the table for good measure.

"Ow," he hisses. "There's no need to be violent."

"Az, this is my brother. Brother dearest, this is my friend Az."

"He's your brother?"

"You made a friend?"

"Yes," I tell them both. "Four is a year older than me, so he transferred first. And you, why do you always question my friend making skills?"

"Because you're as prickly as a fully grown cactus."

"I am not. You take that back."

"And you're as cuddly as a pack of rabid wolves."

Az laughs and the fake tension between Tobias and I is broken, but in revenge I plop a spoonful of banana pudding on the top of his hamburger. He drops a French fry in my glass of water. Az scoots her tray away and pretends to protect it. It's a good meal.


	7. and staggered banged with terror through a million billion trillion stars

I’m lying on my back in the middle of the nursery with Adele bouncing on my chest. She’s a hefty infant and every time she lands too heavily on my chest I huff. She’s back in her black Dauntless shirt, but today she’s wearing a pair of dark red pants, and little baby combat boots, too. She looks like the Dauntless she may one day grow up to be. The door swings open and Fanny stands there in all her glory, a toddler on each hip and another clinging to the bottom of her shirt.

“You,” she says. “you only have one baby. Take Adele, and go down to the kitchen, and find out where the hell lunch is for these little shits. I swear to God if one of them starts crying again because the goddamn food trollie is late, I’m going to split someone’s head open.”

This is one of the things I like about Fanny. She doesn’t take any shit, and she’ll tell you where she stands, and where you stand around her; I suspect that she transferred from Candor.

“I can do that,” I tell her.

“There’s a baby sling in the cabinet,” she says, pointing without taking her and off of one of the toddlers. “Be careful going down the stairs. Plenty of people pay no mind to the baby strapped to your chest, and just plow on through.”

“I will,” I say, pulling the sling over my head; it’s green. “If I catch them on the way up, I’ll just feed Adele in the cafeteria. I’m starving.”

“Yeah, alright. Just find my food.”

“I’m going, I’m going.”

I scoop Adele up and tuck her into the sling; she giggles and claps, and I hand her a squishy red block to play with while I walk down the stairs. Fanny takes her kids back to her room, and I head out in search of the food cart. I keep one hand under Adele, and the other on the wall, making sure that I keep my balance; I couldn’t care less if I tripped and fell and broke my nose so long as I wasn’t carrying a baby when I did it. Adele is fascinated by an environment that isn’t the nursery room; she keeps popping her head up, then going back to her block, then looking out again to see if anything has changed.

As I make my way down to the first floor, two men a few years older than me push by, just like Fanny said they would, and I have to cover Adele’s head to keep her from banging against the wall.

“Watch it, asshole!”

“What was that, bitch?” the eldest one whips around and says.

“I said watch it.”

“Yeah? Who’s going to make me? You and the baby?”

“I can.”

All three of us look down the last six feet to the Pit floor. Max and Eric are standing there, but I can’t decide who it was that spoke; I was too worried that one of the two that pushed passed me would shove me over the ledge with the baby still in my arms. Both of the men freeze where they are.

“I know I didn’t just see you push Olivia into the wall,” Max says.

“She’s just a transfer, sir,” says the one that talked back to me.

“Transfer or no, she’s carrying a Dauntless child. I don’t need to remind you how precious children are in this faction.”

“No, sir.”

“Good. I think the janitor may need some help cleaning the floors over the next week. What do you gentlemen think?”

“Yes, sir,” they both say, and continue to trudge up the stairs, though one turns to give me a dirty look.

I finish climbing down the stairs before someone else can come along and try the same thing. Max and Eric are still standing in the same spot.

“Thanks,” I tell Max. “I wasn’t sure what I’d have done if he’s pushed me again.”

“It’s not a problem. Thank you for keeping, is that Adele? Adele safe.”

“Yeah,” I say, rubbing her tummy. She smiles and waves her hands.

I nod at them both, and continue around them to the cafeteria. It’s just after the regular lunch rush, so there are still quite a few people lingering, but not as many as probably half an hour ago. I pass by to see what’s on the line for today, before heading over to the large silver doors that read ‘Kitchen Staff Only’. I knock pretty loudly, and wait for someone to answer. The boy who does is about five years younger than I am, and very harried looking; his shirt is stained, and he has flour in his hair.

“What?” he asks.

“Fanny asked me to come down,” I tell him. “She still hasn’t gotten food for the toddlers.”

“Sorry,” he says. “I was on my way up when one of the stove burners caught on fire. I’ll just be another few minutes.”

“Good. Is it alright if I go ahead and take the baby food?”

“Sure, let me get that.”

He disappears through the doors, and back again before a full minute has passed. He hands me a jar of smushed green peas, and a small baby sized spoon.

“Thanks.”

With Adele’s food in hand, I get in line and get a tray for myself. There are several vegetables today, and not as much fruit as usual, but it’s a nice change. And as always, there’s banana pudding. When I have everything together, I turn around to find a place to sit and see Az waving her hand at me. I smile at her and head in her direction, making sure I don’t hit anyone with my tray or the baby. When I sit down, I adjust the sling so Adele is sitting in my lap, but still supported. She can’t sit up by herself yet, and most likely won’t be able to for a few months, but she likes to be able to see around her.

“I thought baby duty was you’re punishment,” Az says. “Why are you still doing it on our first day off from initiation?”

“I like babies,” I tell her, unscrewing the lid from the pea jar and dipping my finger inside to make sure it hasn’t come straight out of the fridge; the cold hurts Adele’s gums. “And I don’t have anything else to do. It’s not like we can prepare for the next stage; we don’t even know what it is.”

“You don’t want to hang out with me and meet the other initiates?”

“Not really,” I say quietly. “I’d have enough trouble if you or Harper didn’t pass. I don’t want to like anyone else until this is over.”

“Yeah, that is kind of depressing,” she says. “On another hand, I think my tattoo is infected.”

“You haven’t even had is a full day,” I tell her, coaxing more peas into Adele’s mouth.

“I know. It itches like fire, but when I touch it it hurts like hell.”

“We’ll go back to the parlor after lunch and ask them to check it out.”

“Okay.”

I finish feeding Adele as fast as she’ll eat it, but she’s being particularly stubborn. When she finally decides she’s had enough, I balance her over my shoulder and start to rock her back and forth with one hand while feeling myself with the other. Az watches me the whole time with a strange look on her face.

“So, do you have kids?”

“What? No!”

“You’re really good with her.”

“And that makes you think I have kids?”

“Just a thought,” she shrugs. “Teen pregnancy’s not that unheard of in Amity, free love and all.”

“Our neighbors in Abnegation had several children. I used to keep them so the mother could help her eldest children with their homework.”

“Kids look good on you,” she says. “You should think about having some.”

“Maybe later,” I say. “When I’m dead.”

***

Fanny makes me leave the nursery when I get back from lunch. Cassandra is there to take Adele, now that she’s recovered from her stomach virus, so there isn’t a real reason for me to stick around.

“Why do I have to go?” I ask even as I hand her over.

“You’ve been here every night for a week, and now this morning,” Fanny says. “Go enjoy what little time you have off.”

“I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Make friends, relax, explore. Now, get out.”

I leave Adele with Cassandra and turn out of the nursery, taking the stairs two at a time just because I can now that I don’t have a baby strapped to my chest. I pass by several shops as I take the long way down, but I pass them by. A nap sounds marvelous now that I have nothing to do and food in my belly, so I head back towards our bunk room.

The room is empty, so I shed my boots and my pants, and I turn out the light.

***

I feel like I can’t breathe. I try to open my mouth, bring the air back into my lungs, something, but I just can’t. It’s dark, and hot, and when I feel a hand grab my wrist as I flail, I realize this isn’t a dream. The hand over my face moves and I can finally breathe through my nose, but I can’t make a sound, can’t call for help, if any would even come. I don’t know who’s here with me, but unless they have more than two hands, there are at least two of them.

Neither of them speaks as they pull me from my mattress. I kick and tug as best as I can, but they’re both bigger and stronger than I am; I’m left to try and be the biggest inconvenience I can be. One of them stuffs something in my mouth then holds me by the wrists, and the other fights to grab my ankles. I kick at him, and manage to hit him square in the eye, but that only makes them madder; he spits a curse at me, rubs his eye, and yanks me off the floor. The one advantage of this new position is that I can see one of their faces. I don’t know the one who’s holding my feet.

They carry me out of my room, and down the hall. I can’t tell where we’re going, I don’t even recognize the wall, but it could just be that I’ve never seen them from this angle. We don’t pass anyone. I can’t see in the dark when we walk between lanterns, but every time we near one I try to figure out just where we are in the compound. It doesn’t work, probably because I don’t know the criss cross of tunnels well enough yet.

As we turn a corner, one of the hands around my ankles slips off and I take the opportunity to struggle harder. I manage to kick him in the knee and the crotch, but before I can recover to serve another blow, the one holding my wrists drops me. I don’t expect it, and my head hits the stone floor hard enough to leave me dizzy and nauseous. I don’t have time to recover before they have me restrained again. For a few moments I can’t do anything but try to keep myself from throwing up and choking on my own vomit. I’m so concentrated on not losing whatever I ate last, that I don’t hear it at first.

It starts like a quiet whisper in my ear, and grows louder like an enormous crowd cheering, more and more and more people chanting. I don’t realize where we’re headed until one of the men’s feet steps on metal grating, and I hear it rock and sway under his weight. We’re headed for the chasm.

I wriggle, and I pull, and I twist, and I turn, but they both have good grips on all of my limbs. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I’ve been grabbed out of bed and dragged through the compound, and now I’m going to be thrown to my death in the exact manner I’ve been warned against.

_No one will think it’s murder_ , a voice in my head whispers, _Eric has caught you out here twice. He’ll just think you really were suicidal, that you just went ahead and jumped. And these two will get away with it. No one will care about the death of another initiate, especially a transfer._

Something in that thought disgusts me.

I yank my hand away from the man behind me. He curses in surprise, but it’s too late. I reach behind me and dig my finger nails into the soft skin of his calf. He pulls away, and my hand goes with him, and it’s just enough force to pull my ankles out of the other man’s grasp. I roll to the side, thinking of nothing other than getting away from either of them. I get my hand under me and I push up and my head starts spinning again. I feel fingers scrabble over my leg and I kick backwards. I don’t know what I hit, but I hit something.

I scurry away, and yank whatever is in my mouth out, intending to be able to bit whatever comes at me next. I put my back to the tunnel wall and fling my hair out of my face. The man stalking in my direction is bigger than I thought he was, and when his nose crinkles, I know who it is. This is the same man and his friend that pushed me on the stairs when I had Adele with me.

“What the fuck!” I spit out.

Neither of them say anything, but the one that pushed me does come forward. I pull my feet under me and launch myself at him, catching him around the middle. He lands on his back, and with my weight on top of him he loses his breath. I punch him one, twice before his friend drags me off. My arms are pulled behind my back, wrenched up until my shoulders burn and I scream. The one that pushed me gets to his feet, then bends over and pulls my feet off the floor again.

They’re ready for any kind of protest I might give now, so when they step out onto the metal grated walkway above the chasm, there isn’t anything I can do to stop them. They haul me out into the middle and hoist me up. I take a deep breath, and look the one at my ankles in in the eye. They toss me over.

I flail out in one last attempt to catch something as I go over, and I manage to grip the railing. As rusted and unsteady it may be, it holds my weight for the moment. The metal is wet and slippery and I can feel the current of the river trying to drag me under by my legs.

The two men that threw me over scramble away from the edge until one of them realizes that I haven’t fallen into the water. The friend growls and stalks towards me and begins to pry my fingers from the bar. I do what I can to stop him, but it’s honestly not much. I’m too busy watching my fingers slip from the bar, too worried thinking about what’s going to happen next, and I don’t see someone punch the other one in the face. The one prying my fingers from their hold is shoved away, and two hands are grabbing my arms and pulling me up.

It’s my brother and, surprisingly, Eric. Tobias holds me close while Eric deals with the other two in a fashion I adamantly approve of. As my heart slows down, and the adrenaline fades from my ears, I realize I’m standing over the chasm in just a shirt and my underwear. The absence of modestly doesn’t bother me, but I’m cold from my partial dip into the water, and when I shiver, Tobias hugs me closer.

“What the hell happened?” Eric asks when he’s sure both of the other men are unconscious.

“Th-they grabbed m-m-me out-t-t of b-b-bed-d,” I stutter. Tobias pulls his shirt off and drops it over my head. “Th-th-they’re the o-ones th-that p-pushed me this m-m-morning.”

“Pushed you?” my brother asks.

“She was coming down the stairs in the Pit with one of the infants, and these jackasses pushed her into the wall,” Eric tells him so that I don’t have to. “Max told them to help the janitors clean the floors for the rest of the week.”

“Jesus Christ,” my brother sighs. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Tobias helps me step forward, but without the adrenaline and something else to concentrate on, the nausea is climbing my throat again. I lean over the side and vomit, and it doesn’t taste good. My brother is kind enough to pull my hair back.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“I hit my head,” I tell him. “I’m pretty dizzy.”

“Yep,” he agrees, and slowly scoops me up. Once I’m balanced in his arms, he turns to Eric, who’s been watching us. “I’m going to take her to the infirmary. You going to handle them?”

“Yeah,” says darkly. “I’ll handle them.”

His voice sends a cold spark down my spine.

***

When I wake up, I’m lying on a bed softer than the ones given to the initiates, and I can hear someone murmuring in the distance. I sit up, and my head doesn’t swim and I’m not nauseous, but I have a pounding headache and my mouth tastes like regurgitated food. I feel the back of my head and my hair is tacky with a bit of blood, but I don’t feel any stitches.

I swing my feet off of the bed and I notice that I’m still pantsless, but I don’t care. I push the curtain aside, and shuffle out towards the voices. It’s two women I don’t recognize, and they have their heads bent over a newspaper, whispering about something or other.

“Do you,” I have to suppress the urge to gag from the taste in my mouth, and they both look up at me. “Can I go?”

“You have a concussion,” one of them says. “You may need to stay the rest of the night.”

“Are you serious? No.”

I am so sick of what’s going on that I can feel it like a spoiled meal in my stomach, or that could just be a latent wave of motion sickness. I have been dragged out of bed, knocked into a concussion, bruised from head to toe, and tossed over the chasm. I make the firm decision that I am going to sleep in my own bed. After I brush my teeth.

“I’m sorry, ladies, but if you want be to stay the night, you’re going to have to sedate me. I’ll be in the bunkroom I share with the other transfers. Goodnight.”

I don’t bother to wait for a reply, I just storm out. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know where I’m going, but I’ll be damned if I just sit around anymore.


	8. and dark beginnings are his luminous ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this one's a little shorter than the others because it was a really hectic day (who would have thought a library would be a hectic place to work during tax season??), but i should be getting back on schedule with more than just filler/fluff/kind-of-but-not-really-trying-to-be development tomorrow.
> 
> Thank you for the views!

I’ve never really noticed how cold parts of the Dauntless compound is, but I’ve never wandered around partially clothed before either. I steadily move away from the infirmary, and towards what I hope is my bunkroom. My ankles hurt, and my wrists hurt, and my head hurts, and I wish I was asleep in my bed, but the first thing I’m going to accomplish is a shower and brushing my teeth. I have no clue what time it is, but by the time I get back to my room I figure it’s only a few hours before everyone else is us. I grab my things, my towel, my toothbrush, and a new set of clothes that includes pants, and march to the bathroom.

I reset the shower spray twice and relish in a longer-than-normal shower. The hot water stings the wound on my head, but it makes my muscles go from feeling line grinding stones to feeling like stiff jelly. When I don’t see any more blood washing down the drain, I just stand there. I think about Adele, and I think about the men that nearly killed me tonight, and I think about my brother and Eric coming to my rescue when I thought there wouldn’t be one. I think about the worry on my brother’s face, and the rage on Eric’s. I think about everything until I’m tired of thinking about it.

I climb out of the shower and dress in my clean clothes, barring my boots and socks. I leave my hair loose so I don’t agitate my cut, and I wash my face again to make sure that there isn’t any makeup, or blood, or vomit left. Then I spend ten minutes brushing my teeth. Once that laborious task is completed and I feel like I can talk without gagging, I head back to my room to stash my things. I find my socks, and I lace up my boots, and I leave.

***

I don’t know where I’m going, but I feel like I can’t sit still. I head towards the Pit, and as soon as I step out into the open I know there are too many people around, never mind that they only number twenty or so. No one looks twice at me, and I take it as a godsend that no one has heard about what happened in the middle of the night. I flee the room, and I head towards the chasm, and I pause at the edge of the walkway. I don’t fear what happened, because it didn’t; they didn’t throw me over, I didn’t fall into the water, I didn’t die.

I put one foot in front of the other and I make myself cross the bridge. I haven’t been through this part of the complex, so I figure it’s a nice place to get lost in. The tunnels are a little better lit, the floors are smoothed out a bit more, and I don’t feel like I’m going to bleed every time I bump a wall. After I travel a few yards down the hall, doors begin to appear at random. They look solid, and well built, and exactly the same. They aren’t marked with anything, and they don’t seem to be numbered, so I have no way of telling them apart. I keep going.

I turn this way and that, and weave around corners, and every so often the floor will rise for one or two steps, then slope back down. I walk until there isn’t anywhere else to walk to. I reach a dead end, but I don’t feel like turning around, so I put my back to the wall and just sit. It’s quiet. I put my head on my knees and I think I sleep.

***

“Olivia.”

“Olivia.”

“Stop kicking me, Eric,” I say, shoving his foot away.

“Where the fuck have you been? Four’s been looking for you since you disappeared last night.”

“I didn’t disappear,” I tell him, moving my hair out of my face.

“No one’s seen you in eight hours.”

_Has it been that long? I must have been more tired than I thought._

“Sorry,” I say faintly. “What time is it?”

“One in the afternoon. You were supposed to stay in the infirmary last night. You have a concussion.”

“I didn’t want to,” I tell him, climbing to my feet. My knees are stiff. “And it’s not like the nurses tried to stop me.”

He rolls his eyes, and I lean against the wall.

“Well,” I say. “You found me. Now what do you want?”

“Four wants you brought back to the infirmary. He even said you’d argue.”

“He’s right. I’m not going.”

“Fine. Make sure you’re at training in the morning.”

He turns his back to walk away.

“I want to go on a train ride,” I say before I can think about it.

“What?”

He turns to look at me and I have to make the decision to keep going; my mouth is dry and my tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth.

“A train ride. You said the next time I needed to clear my head I should go on a train ride. I can’t go without a Dauntless member.”

“So take Four.”

“It was your idea.”

“I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have to tell you why not. I’m not going.”

“Are you scared?”

Something in his eyes darkens, and a chill runs through my fingers, but I refuse to be afraid. He stalks towards me, tall and looming, his boots hitting the floor quietly. It isn’t until he’s less than a foot away from me and I’m backed up against the tunnel wall that I realize how much bigger he is than me. Eric is about six feet tall, maybe a few inches more, and he’s at least twice my size. He’s intimidating, I’ll give him that, but it’s not like I have anywhere to run with my back pressed against the wall. I meet his eyes, and I have to tip my head back to do so.

“Do you want to repeat that, transfer?” he says softly.

“No, not really. But I feel like I’ll scream if I have to stay here any longer, and you look like you still want to punch something. We both need a break. I’m offering you an excuse to disappear for a few hours.”

***

We jump off of the same roof I arrived on. It’s more violent this time; there isn’t much room to gain a running start, so when I grab hold of an open car, the train pulls me off my feet and I have to pull myself in before I fall. Eric doesn’t have the same trouble. His movement is a graceful 1-2-3 run-grab-pull that I hope I’ll be able to accomplish sometime in the future. I sit on the edge of the car and let my legs hang out the door. My hair whips around until I catch it in a loose ponytail; it aggravates my cut a little.

Eric sits further into the train car, backed up against the metal sides with his legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed. He leans his head back and closes his eyes, and seems to drop off to sleep. Without his eyes on me, I’m free to examine the tattoos on his arms; the stylized blocks have been extended to his elbows instead of stopping half way there. I turn away and leave him be.

We’re headed away from the city, towards the fence and the Amity farms. I don’t know if Eric wants to go all the way to the end of the line, but I don’t question him right now. I watch the rest of the city whiz by, factionless and broken. Grey buildings made of concrete, like in Abnegation, buildings made of glass and steel, and some smaller buildings made of brick. Even though this part of the city is technically factionless, I don’t think they live this far out. These buildings are just empty.

I close my eyes and I let the wind roar and the wheels bump against the tracks, and I stop thinking.

***

It takes an hour for the train to reach the fence. I can see it in the distance before we reach it, and it extends in either directions towards the horizon and farther than I can see. It’s twelve feet tall, and the top is interwoven with barbed wire. I stand on the lip of the car door, and lean out. Of what I can see beyond the fence, it’s beautiful outside the city. The sky is blue, and the fields are green, and the air smells cleaner than it ever has in the city.

I pull myself back into the train car and walk towards Eric. He’s still asleep like he has been the whole time. I call his name and nudge his boots with the end of mine, just like he did when he woke me up. He doesn’t stir. I repeat myself, and kick him a little harder. Nothing. I give up and walk a little closer.

“Eric,” I say again, this time shaking his shoulder.

His hand comes up and grabs my wrist, but he isn’t harsh; I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t consider me a threat, or because he’s always this slow when he’s been asleep, which I doubt. He blinks up at me, and standing this close to him I can tell his eyes are green and grey, and slowly let’s my wrist go.

“What?”

“We’re nearing the fence. Are we going all the way around or are we walking back?”

“If we go all the way around the city, we won’t make it back for training in the morning,” he says.

“Walking it is then,” I say.

“There’s half a mile of grass between the edge of the city and the fence. We’ll jump there.”

I nod, and go back to the car door.

I don’t hear Eric get to his feet, but I can feel him behind me, watching the fence just like I am.  The train slows down, not much but enough to be noticeable, as we near the fence. He doesn’t have to tell me to jump when we reach the grass. I tuck my knees in and roll, just like brother taught us how to take a fall, and just lay on the ground, my limbs spread out in the grass. Eric jumps, hits the ground, and only has to take a few steps to regain his balance. I thread my fingers through the blades and pluck a few.

“Quite marveling at the grass, and come one,” he says, heading back the way we came; we should be able to follow the tracks all the way back to Dauntless headquarters.

“We didn’t have grass in Abnegation, just gravel,” I say climbing to my feet and following him.

“You can come back and roll in the dirt after you pass initiation.”

“What makes you think I will?” I ask, pushing myself up on my elbows.

He’s only about ten feet from me, and he just keeps walking. I scramble to my feet and follow him, gaining slowly until I’m walking evenly with him, despite his longer gait. He pretends like he hasn’t heard me and I count to thirty before I repeat the question.

“What makes you think I’ll pass initiation?”

“What makes you think you won’t?”

“Because I don’t know what the others are capable of,” I pause, “Az is a better fighter, but not as good as a shot; Harper isn’t a good shot at all really, but he’s both resourceful and vicious in the ring, never mind if he was actually having to fight for his life or someone else’s; I wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight with either of them. I have no idea what the Dauntless born initiates can do. They’ve been doing this their whole lives, so I have to assume they’re better than I am. I’m mediocre, middle of the pile, not the worst, but not the best, and if I’m not the best I can’t be sure of where I’ll be ranked; if I don’t know where I rank, I might as well be out of the running.”

“Has anyone ever told you you think like and Erudite?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“So why didn’t you transfer there?”

“The Erudite give us medicine, and technology, and solutions for problems I didn’t know we had,” I tell him, “but that’s all they care about, how smart you are, what kind of knowledge you can store in your brain, that’s it. They wouldn’t care if their brother strangled three people, because they would have to assume it was for a good reason. They’re shellfish, and I don’t say that as a bad thing, because I think everyone needs to be selfish at some point, but that’s all they are: smart and selfish. They could consume the world and think nothing of is so long as they had someone to gloat to.”

“You still haven’t given me an answer.”

I let my arms swing at my sides for several paces. He’s asked two questions I’ve never had to verbally answer to. I don’t know why, not logically, I didn’t choose Erudite, I just knew that wasn’t where I belong.

“I wanted a family,” I say quietly. “I wanted something to make me want to get out of bed in the morning, something I can protect and keep safe, something that wouldn’t be a power struggle my entire life, like Erudite.”

“Why not Amity?”

“’m too violent,” I say simply.

***

Eric and I have been walking for an hour and are trekking on concrete before either of us says anything else. I don’t recognize any of the buildings, but the feel of the city is familiar, and reminds me of Tobias and me walking to school in the morning.

“Where are we?”

“About eight miles south of the compound,” Eric says.

“Will it take us long to walk?”

“Shouldn’t.”

“I want to thank you, but I don’t know how.”

“Thank me for what?” he splutters.

_Oops_ , I think, _I surprised him_.

“Getting involved last night. Hitting those men when I couldn’t. Saving my life.”

“Four’s the one who pulled you back over.”

“You think he could have done that with two men his size trying to stop him? Maybe eventually, but not before I fell. You both saved my life; you’re just the one getting thanked first. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And I don’t think I’ll be hanging around the chasm much anymore.”

“Good.”


	9. a million wheres which never may become

Az is sitting on my left and Harper is on my right. We, James, and the ten of the Dauntless born initiates left line a dark tunnel, us on one side, them on the other. We’re all crouched down, sitting with our backs against the walls, watching each other. Az is asleep on my shoulder, but I don’t know how she can be so calm. When we first arrived, Four opened the door at the end of the hall and called Donna, one of the Dauntless bourn into the room. We haven’t heard from either of them in half an hour.

“So what do you think it is?” Harper asks aloud, and his voice cuts through the silence like a hot knife.

“What do we think what is?” one of the Dauntless girls asks. She’s long legged, and dark colored, black hair, black eyes, tanned skin.

“Stage two, what do you think it is?”

“We don’t know,” says the girl I pulled onto the train on Choosing Day. She’s tall too, but with sleek blonde hair and blue eyes. “No one’s allowed to talk about it.”

“But what could it be?” he asks again.

“Stop asking about it, transfer. You’ll know when it’s your turn,” the first girl says.

“Harper,” he says. “Not transfer.”

“Tamsin,” the first girl says, to nods her head at the other girl, “This is Alice.”

“This is Olivia, and Az, and James.”

“We know Olivia,” Tamsin smiles. “First jumper.”

“Instructor puncher,” Alice chimes.

“Infant protector.”

I can feel the blush on my face.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Alice says. “You’re quite the talk amongst the younger crowd. Especially since you’re from Abnegation.”

“I’m not Abnegation anymore,” I say.

“You’re well on your way to proving that,” Tamsin says. “Especially since last night.”

My eyes cut into hers. It’s alarming to know that the tale of what happened the night before is out. I don’t want people looking at me differently, treating me like glass because others had to come to my rescue. It also leaves me with the question of who let it out: Tobias or Eric?

“What happened last night?” Harper asks, eyes brows coming together and creasing his forehead. He looks at me then back at the other girls.

“Nothing,” I say coldly, “Not a damn thing.”

“’s not what I heard,” a Dauntless boy says. “I heard you almost got thrown over the chasm. Two guys tried killing you, and it didn’t stick.”

“That’s enough, William,” Alice says, “No need to be a dick.”

“Is that true, Olivia?” Harper asks me quietly. I try to ignore him the best I can, but when Harper concentrates on you, you have to give in.

“They grabbed me out of bed,” I tell him lowly, but with the way the others in the tunnel have gone still and silent, not lowly enough. “They dragged me to the chasm, and they did throw me over. I caught the rail. Four pulled me back over.”

“And Eric beat the shit out of the two that grabbed you,” William says.

Alice whips a knife out of the top of her boot and leaves an incision the size of my hand down William’s arm. He hisses and pulls away, pulling at his shirt and trying to staunch the bleeding.

“I told you not to be a dick,” she growls. “Don’t make me tell you again.”

“Olivia,” Harper breathes. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because I’m fine. I’ve got a concussion and a disgusting headache, but nothing’s broken, and I’m not dead, so I’m fine. It’s nothing to talk about.”

He watches me for a moment, then looks at the Dauntless born.

“What happened to the two guys?”

“Dead,” Tamsin says. “Max and Eric’s orders.”

***

One by one, the others disappear. James, then Alice, then William, then Harper, and three other Dauntless born I don’t know the names of. Only Az and I are left out of the transfers. The Amity girl is awake now, and aware of the fact that she missed a very interesting conversation while she was asleep. I had to promise to tell her later before she would relent. The door opens again, but Cate emerges this time, not Four.

“There’s a situation in the control room, so Four’s been called out. It’ll be a few minutes before we can find someone to replace him.”

“You can’t?” Tamsin asks.

“Not trained,” she says. “Takes a certain, special…someone to train the initiates in Stage Two.”

“We’re doomed,” Az moans, falling on me and being generally over dramatic.

“Relax,” Cate says. “No one’s died in Stage Two in years.”

“Oh, years,” she groans. “That makes me feel loads better.”

“Sarcasm is not a good look on you,” I tell her.

“It’s not a good look on anyone.”

“It looks good on Four,” Tamsin says, batting her eyelashes.

“Anything is a good look on Four,” Cate says.

“You think he’s attractive?” I ask.

“You don’t?” Tamsin asks.

“No,” I tell them, and both Cate and Az laugh.

***

It takes an hour, but finally the door behind Cate opens.

“Who’s next on the list?” Eric asks, leaning in the doorway. He looks like he didn’t get much sleep the night before.

“They sent _you_?” Cate asks. “Couldn’t they send Carlos or Ann?”

“Carlos is on the fence for the next week; Ann is still on maternity leave. I’m the only one left. Who’s next?”

He doesn’t seem pleased about it.

“There isn’t a list,” Cate says. “Four was calling them randomly.”

“Of course he was. Jack, you’re next, let’s go.”

Jack stands from his place on the floor and follows Eric into the room.

“Jackass,” Cate mutters.

***

I’m next. Jack doesn’t come back out, none of the other initiates have either, but Eric calls me in and all I can do is take a deep breath and follow. The room is dark, and small, but warm. There’s a bank of monitors on one wall, and a metal reclining chair in the center of the room; the machine beside it is pretty familiar.

_It’s a simulation_ , I think, _just like the Aptitude test._

“I was allergic to the Aptitude Test,” I tell him.

“I know. The braniacs in Erudite whipped up a special formula just for you. It’s supposed to keep your body from reacting. Sit down.”

I slide into the chair. Eric picks up a needle from a table behind him; the fluid in the injector is green.

“What’s it like?” I ask.

“What?”

“A simulation.”

“You don’t remember?”

I shake my head.

“You won’t know it’s a simulation.” he says. “Stage Two makes you face your fears. You’ll go through them one by one until you calm down, lower your breathing and heart rate. Then you’ll wake up. Simple as that.”

I nod briefly, and Eric reaches forward to prick the skin of my neck with the tip of the needle. It’s like falling asleep.

***

When I open my eyes I’m still in the same room. The space is still small, still dark, and I’m still sitting on the metal chair. The computers are still on the wall, the empty syringe is still on the tray, Tobias is still sitting next to me. He’s staring at me, watching me look at the room, like he knows something’s wrong. He looks like he did the morning he chose to leave Abnegation, the morning he chose to leave me.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Whatever happens,” he says, “I still love you.”

“What?”

“Don’t follow me, Olivia.”

He stands from his chair and starts to move towards the door. I try to reach for him, but my arms are glue to my sides, my legs are frozen, and I just have to watch him walk away again. I feel like my lungs are dry, shriveled like the elderly factionless I’ve seen wandering the city, and my heart is beating so fast it’s all I can hear; it makes the same noise over and over again: _don’t follow me, don’t follow me, don’t follow me, don’t follow me._ I can’t breathe, and I’d bet my life that I’m crying, and no matter how hard I try I just can’t control myself, I can’t calm down.

_It’s just a simulation_ , Eric’s voice repeats, _It stops when you calm down_.

But I can’t because….because….

He’s gone.

***

I open my eyes again and I’m clenching the front of Eric’s shirt in my fist, gulping air like I’ve been starved of it. My pulse is still roaring in my ears and I can vaguely tell that Eric is speaking, but I can’t, and don’t care to, decipher what he’s saying. I feel the bile rising in my throat at the same time as I spot the trashcan in the corner under the bank of monitors. I slide out of the metal chair and dive for it, barley making my make before I start throwing up.

I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand when I’m done, and sit back against the cool wall. Eric is watching me. I meet his eyes, and I’m a little surprised that I’m not ashamed of my fear; everyone is afraid of something, and everyone is afraid of something different. I calm myself down, take deliberately large breaths until my heartbeat recedes, ignore the taste of stomach acid in my mouth.

“You’re afraid of Four?” Eric asks.

I shake my head.

“I’m afraid of him abandoning me.”

“You’ve known him for a week,” he says, and I think I can hear just a hint of disgust in his tone.

I shake my head again.

“Four is my brother.”

***

I’m lying in my bed, staring up at the dark ceiling. Az is lying opposite me, her cold toes pressed under my ribs; Harper is sitting on the floor by my head, his head tucked between his knees. I can hear him sniffle every once in a while. Az hasn’t said a word since she joined us. The room around us is dark. I don’t know if James is in here with us, or if he’s off somewhere in the compound.

“What was yours?” Az asks quietly.

“Abandonment,” I whisper. “You?”

“They burned my mother at the stake.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know. What about you, Harper?”

“Falling,” he says, “Off of the top of the Hub.”

“God, we’re all a mess,” Az sighs. “Let’s head to the cafeteria and eat our weight in the chocolate cake.”

“I second that motion,” Harper says.

When they’re both on their feet, but I haven’t moved, the two of them forcefully pull me to my feet. I stumble forward before catching myself. We all trudge to the cafeteria together, lumbering slowly and not caring that we’re annoying the people around us. They may have done what we just did, but not today. The cafeteria is busy, but not full and when we each have a plate of cake in our hands, Harper directs us to the table where Alice, Tamsin, and another Dauntless boy are picking their own deserts apart.

“Hey,” Alice says dully. “How are you guys?”

“About as good as you and your lot,” Harper says honestly.

She nods.

“We have to do it again tomorrow,” Tamsin says. “Do you think it’ll be the same fear? Or will it be a different one?”

“Don’t think about it,” I say.

“I threw up,” the boy says.

“Me, too,” I agree.

“I don’t really want this cake,” Az says.

“Yeah,” Tamsin says. “We figured that out already.

“We’re pathetic,” Alice says.

“Yeah,” the boy agrees.

“Not really,” I say, and the rest of the table looks at me. “I mean, not completely. This is part of the learning curve: we can’t face our fears if we don’t know what they are, and if we don’t know what they are, then how can we expect to face them in a real situation? I don’t think it’s about not being afraid, I think it’s about being afraid and still be able to do something about it.”

“Has anyone ever told you, you think like an Erudite?” Alice asks.

“I wish they’d stop.”

***

We’re all sitting in the same tunnel again the next day, except this time everyone is silent and still. One by one our numbers dwindle, until it’s my turn. It’s the same room, the same darkness, the same chair. Except this time both Eric and my brother are in the room. I look at them both, confused, because only Eric was needed last time.

“Family can’t test family,” my brother says. “It wasn’t a problem yesterday because I was called away.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay with this?” he asks.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask weakly. “I’ve always wanted to show every Tom, Dick, and Harry my deepest, darkest, most irrational fears. It’ll be a cake walk.”

“You still get sarcastic when you’re scared.”

“You’re still a grump in the morning.”

“You really should concentrate on overcoming your fears.”

“You really should concentrate on not being an asshole.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yeah,” I swallow. “I know.”

He glances at Eric, who hasn’t said a word, and walks out the back door. I walk towards the chair, and Eric uncaps the needle.

“Is it always the same fear?” I ask.

“No.”

“Great.”

***

I’m in my grey kitchen in my grey Abnegation house, washing the grey dishes with grey scented soap. My clothes are grey, my hair is grey, my life is grey. I put the clean dishes to rinse and set them in the drying rack. I hear the door fly open and hit the opposite wall; the plate in my hands crashes to the floor and shatters. I know what’s coming.

My father storms into the kitchen. I don’t know why he’s angry, but the shards of ceramic scattered on the floor only set more kindle to the flame. I scamper to the broom closet, and reach for the broom and dustpan, but my father catches me by the wrist. He yanks me back, and I hear the bones in my hand pop, and he throws me to the floor. I hit my head. I sit up, dizzy.

He’s yelling, but I can’t understand him, can’t answer when he shouts a question. He picks up a drying glass and flings it at me. It misses, hit the floor, shatters. A piece hits me in the face, glances across, but still splits skin. He storms forward, still yelling, buzzing in my ear like a fly rapidly beating its wings. He grabs the front of my dress, hauls me up, punches me once in the stomach. I can’t breathe.

***

When I open my eyes, one of my hands is in Eric’s shirt again, and the other is held in one of his own; his other hand is holding my shoulder down. I let go quickly, draw away like being burned, but he pulls back more slowly, sits back down, leans in his seat. I don’t feel the need to vomit this time, but I’m so, so angry with myself. When I chose Dauntless and left Abnegation behind, I swore I’d never be afraid of my father again. He has no power over me here, or anywhere, but it doesn’t seem that my mind has quite caught on.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You punched me in the eye,” he says.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he says, and I look up at him. “You’ve convinced your body to fight your fears, now you just have to convince your mind. It’s half the battle.”

“Right. Okay. Good talk.”

I slide off of the metal chair, and I have to support myself for just a moment before my knees start to work again. I shake the lingering feelings of phantom fingers grabbing me, brush off the bruise I know isn’t under my shirt.

“How long did it take you?” I ask. “How long did it take you to work through the simulation?”

“Twelve days,” he says. “Four did it in seven.”

“He’s always been an overachiever,” I say. “Can’t help himself.”

He stands and follows me to the back door. My brother is waiting for us on the other side; he’s been chewing on his fingernails if the irritated skin is to go by. He looks me over, checks for what I don’t know because it isn’t like I would carry injury from a situation that took place in my own head, then looks Eric over like the other man would have done something other than administer the simulation.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. Better than yesterday.”

“Showoff,” he huffs, and throws an arm over my shoulder. “I’ve got to finish with the others.”

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

“See you.”

He passes Eric and closes the door behind him.

“Thanks,” I tell him.

“What for?”

“The simulation. You’re not as big of a jerk as everyone says.”

“Who says I’m a jerk?”

“I can’t say,” I turn away and head towards the Pit. “But I think they’re wrong.”


	10. leaving to shadowy silence and dismay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know this took me a really long time to finish, and I'm sorry for that. But here it is, Chapter 10. 
> 
> I don't know how long it'll take me to get any more chapters out, hopefully not more than a week, but if it does, please bear with me. Who knew a public library would get busy in tax season?

Dinner that night is more talkative than the day before. My brother sits with us, if front of me and beside Harper, and steals food off of my tray when he thinks I’m not looking. None of us are in good moods, but we aren’t quite as shell shocked as we were; Alice and Tamsin even sit with us, though they give Four funny looks when he slides his bowl of banana pudding onto my tray. I retaliate by letting him have my portion of chocolate cake. 

“I have decided,” Az says to the table, setting her fork on her tray, “that I want another tattoo.”

“It’s been two days,” I tell her. “And your first one is infected.”

“Irritated,” she says. “Not infected. I want another one.”

“What do you want?” Alice asks.

“I have no idea. Who else has got one?”

Alice, Tamsin, and Az all raise their hands.

“You have one,” Az says, pointing at Four. “What is it?”

“It’s a big fat sign that reads ‘fuck off’.”

“Never mind,” she says, and I kick my brother under table.

“Stop kicking me,” he hisses. 

“Then stop being an asshole,” I hiss back. I like that my brother and I no longer have to think about each other’s feelings before we say anything. I like being able to speak my mind without someone fussing at me for being selfish; I can be as selfish as I want now.

“I’d stop being an asshole if you’d stop kicking me.”

“Liar. You’d keep pushing until I punched you again.”

“You punch like a girl,” he sneers.

“Of course I do,” I say smiling. “Seemed pretty effective to me.”

He rolls his eyes and dumps a piece of chocolate cake in my pudding. 

***

I feel like I can’t breathe. I try to open my mouth, bring the air back into my lungs, something, but I just can’t. It’s dark, and hot, and when I feel a hand grab my wrist as I flail, I realize this isn’t a dream. The hand over my face moves and I can finally breathe through my nose, but I can’t make a sound, can’t call for help, if any would even come. I don’t know who’s here with me, but unless they have more than two hands, there are at least two of them.

It starts like a quiet whisper in my ear, and grows louder like an enormous crowd cheering, more and more and more people chanting. I don’t realize where we’re headed until one of the men’s feet steps on metal grating, and I hear it rock and sway under his weight. We’re headed for the chasm.

 _No one will think it’s murder_ , a voice in my head whispers, _Eric has caught you out here twice. He’ll just think you really were suicidal, that you just went ahead and jumped. And these two will get away with it. No one will care about the death of another initiate, especially a transfer._

I scurry away, and yank whatever is in my mouth out, intending to be able to bit whatever comes at me next. I put my back to the tunnel wall and fling my hair out of my face. The man stalking in my direction is bigger than I thought he was, and when his nose crinkles, I know who it is. This is the same man and his friend that pushed me on the stairs when I had Adele with me. 

The two men that threw me over scramble away from the edge until one of them realizes that I haven’t fallen into the water. The friend growls and stalks towards me and begins to pry my fingers from the bar. I do what I can to stop him, but it’s honestly not much. I’m too busy watching my fingers slip from the bar, too worried thinking about what’s going to happen next, and I don’t see someone punch the other one in the face. The one prying my fingers from their hold is shoved away, and two hands are grabbing my arms and pulling me up.

“I’m going to take her to the infirmary. You going to handle them?”

“Yeah,” he says darkly. “I’ll handle them.”

His voice sends a cold spark down my spine.

***

I come out of the simulation hazy; the room is swimming, and my pulse is still racing, but Eric is a stationary figure at my side. I’m not nauseous, even though I know that the two men that threw me over are dead, that Eric is probably the one who killed them, and it doesn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. 

“I’m not sorry they’re dead,” I tell him in the quiet of the room. The metal chair has warmed to my body temperature, and I flex my fingers over the arm rests to keep from reaching out, reaching for something. 

“Who told you they were dead?” he asks.

“Some of the other initiates,” I tell him. “They heard about what happened. Don’t know how.”

“Goddamn gossips,” he hisses. “You weren’t supposed to know.”

“Why?” I ask. “Did you think I would ask for mercy upon them? Ask for the minimum punishment?”

“It doesn’t matter. It was Max’s decision.”

“I wouldn’t have. They tried to kill me; you and my brother are the only reason that didn’t happen. I can’t say I’m glad they’re dead, or that I would have returned the favor to them, but I’m not sorry for it.”

“I can’t say any of us are,” he says.

***

The room I share with the other transfers is empty when I walk in. I don’t know where the others are. I crouch down by the bottom of the mattress and wiggle my hand between the fabric and the bedframe. The spine of the book I snuck into the compound of Choosing Day is stiff from a week and a half’s worth of stillness, but in no worse condition that when I arrived. The cover is green, like the grass at the edge of the fence, and blank of words. There is no title, and no accredited author; I don’t even know if my mother knew who the book was written by. The pages are yellowing with age, frayed around the edges, but still secure in their binding; I imagine that the black ink on each page is as dark and purposeful as the day it was printed. This is my favorite book.

I crawl into my bed, prop my pillow against the wall, and pull the sheets over my legs. 

***

The next four days repeat the same cycle: simulation, lunch, free time, dinner, sleep. I see Marcus twice more in training, along with being run over by a train, and being tossed over the chasm. I don’t see my brother in the simulation again. Eric is there each day, living through the fears in my head and walking me through my after thoughts. He’s never unkind about it, though he isn’t very pleasant either. Eric is a quiet place in the tumulus sea that is training; he will not sugar coat something, nor will he outright lie.

On the morning of our first day off after Stage Two, I return to the training room after being tugged around by Az after breakfast to find several of the other initiates crowed around the chalkboard. Harper is standing in the middle of them, head bent low as he whispers to Alice. 

“Harper,” Az says quietly, tapping him on the shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Change in ranks,” Alice says.

“I thought no one else was getting cut until after stage three!”

“Eric said it was a progress report,” Harper says. “I don’t think anyone’s being cut.”

Az pushes by them so she can stand in front of the board; I follow her. Az has been moved to third on the list.

My name is first.

***

“Is it really so surprising?” Fanny asks as I bounce Adele on my hip.

The initiates have the next seven days off to relax and recuperate before Stage Three begins. I’m spending more time with the infants and Fanny than I am with the other initiates.

“Sort of,” I say. “I don’t really think I’m all that good at facing my fears.”

“It’s not about how good you are at facing your fears. It’s about how much better you are at facing your fears than everyone else. Besides, just because you’re in first place now, doesn’t mean you will be at the end of stage three.”

“You always make me feel better, Fanny,” I say dryly. “Like a snake bite, or a burn.”

“I do my best.”

***

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” I say as Az throws herself down on my bed. It’s our second night off and neither of us have the slightest inclination of how to keep ourselves occupied. “I’m not bored, but…”

“But we don’t have anything to do either.”

“Right. Where’s Harper? I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“Me either. Who knows what he’s gotten into?”

“We could go down to the commissary and have an early dinner,” I suggest.

“We could throw you off the chasm and see if you live again,” she counters.

“Touché.”

“We could always jump the train lines?”

“Can’t leave the territory without a Dauntless member.”

“We’ll take your brother.”

“He’s working a double shift in the technology labs.”

“Cate?” 

“I don’t know what her other job is, but every time I’ve seen her not training us she’s been drunk. Probably not a good idea to take her rail jumping if she is.”

“We could always take Eric.”

I push myself up onto my elbows so I can see her face.

“You don’t like Eric,” I tell her. “He scares the hell out of you.”

“You like him,” she says without looking at me. “He doesn’t scare you.”

“Are you kidding me? Every time I open my mouth I’m afraid he’ll take my head off.”

“So he’s not the one who went rail jumping with you the day after those two other Dauntless attacked you?”

“How do you know about that?”

“So it was him.”

“I needed to clear my head,” I say, sitting up fully so she has to look at me. “I didn’t want to be around my brother and I didn’t want anyone else to know. He was the only choice.”

“And he agreed,” she says. “Sounds like he likes you too.”

***

Az and I find Harper in the Pit. He, Tamsin, and Alice are all sitting at a small table in a dark corner, passing around a bottle that smells like alcohol even though it’s nowhere near my nose. None of them are as drunk as they could be, I suppose, but they aren’t particularly sober either. Harper makes room for Az to sit in his chair and leaves the last seat for me. He hands Az the bottle and she takes a delicate sip, coughing at the sting running down her throat.

“Your turn,” she says, waving the bottle in my direction.

Alcohol isn’t something I’ve ever wanted to experience. The Abnegation don’t drink, consider it poisoning others through your acts, but it was always in my house. It and Marcus, well, it was never pretty.

“Thanks.”

I take the bottle from her and tip it up, covering the spout with my finger so all I get is the salty taste of sweat from my hands and the sear of a few drops on my tongue.

“Check it out,” Alice says. “Abnegation knows how to loosen up.”

“Pretty sure,” Harper pauses, “pretty sure she’s not Abnegation.”

“Definitely not Abnegation,” Tamsin agrees.

“To giving up where we’re from,” Az says, hoisting the bottle in the air, “and finding somewhere new.”

We all pretend to clink imaginary glasses together and drink. The bottle gets passed around a few more times, but I only take enough to taste.

***

I leave the four of them in the Pit once they’re all drunk enough for the conversation to slide into rather salacious territory and Alice starts talking about my brother. I shudder at the thought of a few things she’d mentioned before I was too far away to hear. There’s nothing I want to hear less. 

I decide to make my way up, out of the pit and into the large glass walled room above. The stairs up are rickety and creak under my feet. The glass ceiling turns into the floor and my first step onto it is a bit nerve wrecking; I can see several stories below me to the roughly carved floor of the Pit and I have to convince myself that my next step won’t be to my death. The sun has set outside, but through the glass walls and dim lighting I can see the stars and the moon in the sky and the abandoned buildings crumbling around the territory. I never would have noticed Dauntless Headquarters here if I had just been passing by.

There are clusters of more Dauntless gathered on the glass floor. Some are just talking, but others seem to be taking part in one activity or another: fighting with blunted staffs, keeping a ball away from another team, spontaneous foot races. A dull shout echoes through the open space and when I look up two men are balanced on a tight rope; another man stands at one end of the rope, shaking it with his foot and laughing when the other two struggle for balance.

I stuff my hands in my pockets and wander around the edge of the room until I meet a tunnel that leads somewhere else. I turn down it, content to wander and stretch my legs. There are several door along the way, and, by the labels next to the door frames, I seem to have wandered into the heart of Dauntless control. As I reach the half-way point down the hall, a door swings open and a man and a woman exit, nearly knocking me off my feet, though they take no notice and continue on their way. Before the door closes, I glimpse the back of a familiar dark head.

After the two Dauntless have walked far enough away, and I’m sure no one else is coming down the hall, I crack open the door and slip inside. The wall opposite the door is full of monitors, and each of the displays flickers between pictures. It isn’t until one of the larger screens displays a shot of the Pit that I recognize that the footage must be from security cameras.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” my brother says.

“I figured,” I say, dropping down three steps so we’re on the same level. “So this is what you do, huh?”

“I’m pretty much a glorified security guard,” he admits. “But I like it. It’s quiet.”

“I think I got enough quiet in Abnegation,” I tell him.

“Our lives were anything but quiet.”

I sit down on the arm of his chair and he wraps his arm around my waist. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to just sit with my brother.

“I used to feel like I was living in a graveyard,” I whisper. “It was always so quiet, even when he was home. I felt like everything was going to shatter if I said a word. Everyone knew what was going on, but no one would say anything. Even me. I didn’t say anything and I should have.”

“I didn’t say anything either,” he whispers back, “and I left you there with him.”

“I wanted you to go,” I tell him. “I wanted you out of there so badly I couldn’t take it.”

“Big, brave Olivia,” he laughs/sobs. “Always looking out for others.”

***

When my brother’s shift in the control room is over, we leave together, his arm around my shoulders and mine around his waist. He takes us through a different set of tunnels and not back through the glass room or the Pit. We don’t talk about much, and we avoid the subject of training until he asks about my simulations.

“I’ve seen Marcus a few times,” I admit. “I’ve been hit by a train once, and thrown over the edge and into the chasm three times.”

“Marcus is in mine, too,” he tells me.

I tighten my arm around his waist.

“What about Eric?” he asks slowly.

“What _about_ Eric?”

“He’s not being nasty? He’s not really known for his sweet disposition.”

“Eric is,” I pause to think, “well, he’s a dick, but he doesn’t sugar coat anything and he doesn’t mock me for my fears, so he hasn’t been too big of a dick.”

“That’s surprising. He’s usually a really, really big dick.”

***

Tobias leaves me in the commissary and heads for his room, intent on a full ten hours of sleep before his next shift in the control room. It’s just after the busiest meal time, so most of the food available has been picked at, but I manage to scrape together two apples and a bunch of grapes. None of the initiates are within sight, so I pick an empty table in the corner away from the left over hustle and bustle and take a seat. I crunch on the apples slowly, taking my time because it’s not like I have anywhere else to be. After a few moments of just drowning in the white noise of the room, I pluck all of my grapes from their stems and begin to arrange them in shapes.

“Didn’t anyone teach you not to play with your food?”

I look up, startled. Eric is standing on the other side of my table, hand in one pocket and the other holding an apple of his own.

“Sure,” I say. “But I don’t see my father around, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

I duck my head again and rearrange my fruit again.

“So,” he says, sinking into the seat across from mine, “have an idea of whether or not you'll pass initiation yet?”

“Depends,” I say, shaping my grapes into an arrow and eating one, “on whether those scores are real, or if this is some kind of psych out. Put the losers in the top and the winners in the bottom. Either way, someone’s likely to slip, out of confidence or desperation, one.”

“Again: Erudite.”

“I still wish people would stop telling me that.”

“Then stop thinking out loud.”

“I wasn’t thinking out loud. You asked me a question, and I answered it.”

“A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

I flick a grape at him. He snags it from the table and pops it into his mouth.

“What’s stage three?” I ask.

“Can’t tell you that yet. Wouldn’t be fair.”

“Since when do you care what’s fair or not?” I ask. “It wasn’t fair when the first four initiates were cut, and it won’t be fair when the rest are. It isn’t fair that we have to face our worst fears, though I do recognize the practicality of it. It isn’t fair that two men think they can kill an initiate and get away with it. Life isn’t fair. If it was, I would have had a gun in my hand and left a bullet in Marcus’s head on Visiting Day.”

I’m surprisingly calm. Nothing I’ve said isn’t true, but none of those thoughts spark my anger like they usually do. My heart isn’t racing, and my breath isn’t uneven. I look up at Eric and find him watching me, slowly turning the stem on his apple until it breaks off.

“You’re right,” he says lowly. “I don’t care what’s fair and what’s not. I couldn’t give a damn if we picked initiates at random so long as they were good at what we told them to do. But you,” he looks me in the eye, “I want to see if you can make it. I want to see if you’ll keep standing or if you’ll crumple like a wet paper bag. Every time I think you’re going to give in, you don’t, you push back, you win. I want to know if you’re brave, or if you’re just acting like it.”

I stand from the table, chair sliding across the floor almost noiselessly. He watches me rise, doesn’t look away from my face. 

“I don’t have an answer for you,” I tell him, “because I don’t think I know either.”


	11. of a good universe next door;let's go

Tobias gathers all of the initiates, transfer and Dauntless born alike, in the commissary on the morning of the first day of Stage Three. He leads us into the Pit and up through the glass ceiling, rickety stairs creaking from our weight. In the daylight I can see that all the buildings around us are abandoned and crumbling down, leaving their innards exposed to the elements and our eyes. 

My brother keeps going, herding us through the large glass room and through a door that’s been painted to match the wall. The room beyond is massive and covered in bright graffiti, some of it depicting blurry individuals managing great feats of bravery and some of it illegible scrawl. Exposed pipes wind over the walls and through the ceiling and floor. Old-fashioned fluorescent bulbs try to light the dank space, but they don’t quite succeed.

“This is a different kind of simulation,” he says. “We call it the Fear Landscape. It’s disabled right now, so this isn’t how it’ll look the next time you see it. Through the last stage, the computers have compiled and stored information on your worst fears. The Fear Landscape accesses that data and presents you with a series of physical obstacles. Some of the fears you see will be ones you’ve previously experienced in Stage Two; some will be brand new. The difference is that you will be aware that this is a simulation.

“To beat the Landscape, you have to beat your fears. You can do this in two ways: you either find a way to calm down, to lower your heartbeat and your breathing until you fool the system into registering a normal pace, or you can face your fear, which will force the simulation to move on. One way to face a fear of drowning is to swim deeper.

“Tomorrow afternoon, you’ll each be subjected to the simulation in front of a panel of Dauntless leaders. The faster you face them, the better your score. That will be the test to determine your final rankings for Stage Three. I suggest you take the next twenty-four hours to consider what will show up.”

“How many fears are we going to face?” Jack, the Dauntless born that Alice cut, asks.

“How many do you have?”

***

“That’s why they call you Four, isn’t it?” I ask my brother. “Because you only had to face four fears?”

He and I are sitting on the roof of Dauntless HQ on the same concrete platform I jumped from on Choosing Day. I’m wearing his spare jacket against the night chill, but I’m still shivering. Tobias has a cigarette between his fingers; he lit it when we sat down, but he hasn’t sipped from it, only watched it burn out. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

“Is – is Marcus…”

“Yeah, Marcus is still one of mine.”

"Sometimes I think we'll never get away from him."

"We're away from him now," he says. "He's still in our heads and he may always be, but he's gone."

"No," I whisper, "he's not."

***

Cate is waiting for us outside of the Fear Landscape the next morning. When it seems like everyone has arrived, she starts talking.

"Twelve years ago I was afraid of heights, spiders, snakes, failure, being lonely, choking to death, public humiliation, needles, small spaces, burning to death, and the dark. Most of you will have ten to fifteen fears in your Landscape; that's average," she pauses. "You won't find out your number today. The Landscape has been set up to run each of you through one of my fears. This is just so you can get a feel for what the simulation is like. When you face your own fears, it will be more traumatizing.

"For the sake of time and my own sanity, I'm going to guide each of you through conquering a fear, but the simulation won't move on until I decide that you've got a firm grasp on what's happening. Everybody clear?"

We all nod our heads.

"Let's start with the first in ranks then. C'mon, Olivia."

***

When Cate and I step into the Landscape room, it's no longer the empty, bare brick room that Tobias introduced us to the day before. We're standing in a clearing several yards wide, but completely surrounded by dense, black trees. A ferocious wind pushes at our backs. The grass under my feet is dry and brittle, and the air stinks of smoke. The wind suddenly slows, and before my ears can hear it, lightning has stuck the ground in front of me. It smells like ozone, and ashes, and there are flames burning up the grass.

I look back at Cate; she's worrying her lip between her teeth, watching the flames with a concentration so heavy an elephant could envy it. I look back at the fire, back at Cate.

"I don't understand," I tell her. "I thought this was supposed to expose some of our fear."

"Maybe you're not afraid of burning to death," she says. "But I am."

"But I don't even feel like it's real. It feels like....it's like a scene from a book that forms in my head: I know what it looks like, and how it's supposed to feel and smell, but I know it's not real. I'm not afraid."

“So prove to the simulation you’re not afraid,” she says. “Show it you know it’s not real.”

I look back at the fire and take a step forward, then another. When I’m standing in the middle of the fire, cool flams licking the tips of my fingers, I look back at Cate and shrug. She heaves a put-upon sigh, and slowly follows me into the fire. 

The image of the field and the trees and the fire fade, melt to the ground so that the only thing left is the bare brick, and exposed pipes, and dankness of the Landscape room. Cate looks relieved to be out of the fire, and motions me to the door. When I swing it open, the rest of the initiates, my brother, and Max are all waiting. I pause in the doorway, startled, but Cate pushes past me, gulping air like a new babe from the womb.

“You okay?” my brother asks.

“I’m fine,” I say slowly. “Cate’s the one who had to face her own fear.”

“Cate will be fine,” he says confidently. “How did you do?”

“She did perfect,” Cate says between inhales. “She knew how to beat it, didn’t even hesitate.”

“It didn’t feel real,” I mumble, “like when you read a book, you know?”

“No, not really,” he sighs. “Who’s next?”

***

I’m dismissed from the group as soon as Cate and Az have closed the door behind themselves. I don’t go far, just down into the pit, but it takes forty-five minutes for Az to follow me. She’s pale, and winded from her trip down the rickety stairs, like she was running from something. She wipes her palms against her shirt, and insists that we head to the commissary for something to drink.

“What did you get?” I ask as we pass the tunnel to the chasm. 

“Choking to death,” she says. “You?”

“Burning to death.”

“What an exciting bunch we are. I want a nap.”

“I don’t think we have time for food and a nap,” I tell her. “We have to face the judges this afternoon.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says somewhat cheerfully, and widens her step until she’s ahead of me.

I follow her through the food line, though the only thing I pick up is a bowl of banana pudding, and sit with her in a quiet corner. Tamsin, then Harper, then Alice and Jack and Connor file in after us. No one wants to say anything to each other.

***

I head back to the transfers’ room alone and leave everyone else in the Pit. My footsteps echo off the empty tunnel walls. I watch my boots and let my fingertips go numb as I let them glide along the wall. The room I share with the others is actually tidy for once, beds somewhat made and clothes and belongings stashed away under mattresses and in the provided dressers. I pull out a new tank top and a new pair of socks; it may be the leftover Abnegation in me that wants to be presentable to the rest of Dauntless, but I do feel better after I change. I’m re-lacing my boots when someone knocks on the door.

“It’s time,” Eric says without his usual malicious glee.

I nod.

“The others are already on their way up. You’re brother noticed you were missing.”

I stand from my bed and thread my fingers through my hair, tugging the wavy strands into a messy braid. I look at my bed, and at Az’s, and Harper’s. I don’t know what I’ll do if I’m cut.

“Get a move on,” he says, again, almost dully. 

I head towards the door.

“Can you do me a favor?” I ask as I walk through the doorway.

“What?” he turns to follow me.

“There’s a book under my mattress. Will you make sure Four gets it if I don’t make it through?”

“You’re going through a simulation, not playing Blanks and Bullets,” he says roughly.

“So I’m going to be allowed to gather my things and say goodbye before I’m kicked out on my ass?”

His silence is my answer.

“That’s what I thought.”

***

There’s no one to pass on our journey from the transfer’s room through the Pit and up the stairs to the glass floor. It seems like every member of Dauntless has been shoved into the very limited space around the Landscape room. The other initiates stand at the front and when I’m spotted, I’m quickly shepherded to the front. At the last minute, Eric lays a hand on my shoulder and murmurs ‘good luck’ in my ear, but when I look back, he’s already faded into the crowd.

When I’m pushed through the rest of the crowd and in with the other transfers, I feel Az take my hand. Her other hand is holding Harper’s. Max puts his hands up in the air, and slowly everyone in the room falls silent, waiting for the introduction of our final test.

“As always,” Max says, “our transfer initiates will go first by order of their current ranks.”

That makes me first.

I see my brother clench his hands, then smooth them over his thighs; he’s more scared for me than I am. I listen as Max talks about who’s judging and how we’ll be judged, but it’s all nonsense to me: if I pass, I pass. When he’s finally done talking, he motions for me to step to the door. Eric injects me with the simulation serum, just like he did through the last stage, but instead of going under, I walk through a door.

***

I’m standing in my house in Abnegation. Everything has a hazy grey quality to it, and it takes me a moment to realize that that’s how my memories really are: hazy and dull. The sink is running and there are several dirty dishes stacked on the counter. In the distance my ears register the closing of a car door, and I realize what fear this must be. I look down at myself. I’m still wearing my Dauntless black clothes, and I know nothing will enrage my father further. 

I feel my heart rate spike in my chest, feel my breathing get heavier. Marcus slams through the front door, already in a rage. I hear a photo frame from the wall hit the floor and shatter.

 _So this is it_ , I think, _my first fear is Marcus in a screaming fit. He came home like this the night of Tobias’s Choosing Ceremony._

He appears in the kitchen doorway, face disfigured and fists already clenched. He sees me in my Dauntless black and he roars. I take a deep breath, and two steps to the storage closet in the corner. When she was alive, my mother insisted on keeping a fire axe there for safety after there was a widespread fire two neighborhoods over. It’s still there when I open the door. Marcus roars again when he sees it in my hands, and charges at me. 

Calmly I bring the axe up over my head and bury it in the curve of his neck. Blood sprays, but it doesn’t bother me, and when he keeps coming, I swing again. Nothing has felt so good in a long, long time.

***

I’m standing in front of Dauntless headquarters, on the platform where we first jumped from the train as initiates. The sun is hot on my back but not uncomfortable, and I can feel the vibrations of an oncoming train through my boots. To my right, I can see the train coming from the direction of the Hub, but when I try to move, I realize my foot is stuck between a railroad tie and the metal brace that sits on top of it. I try and pull my leg away; I even unlace my boot and try to leave my shoe behind, but it’s no use. I’m going to be run over.

When I’ve finally exhausted my options of removing my foot from his trap, I sit down and I wait.

***

It’s dark and I can hear water rushing.

There are hands all over me, pulling and pushing and keeping me from screaming. My heart is trying to crawl up my throat. I’m swaying back and forth with the movement of the people carrying me. My body hurts, my heat hurts. Just like before, there is no real way out of this situation, and I doubt my brother and Eric will be coming to my rescue. Not this time. 

I’m not giving any kind of protest, and if that shocks my subconscious it doesn’t affect the simulation, so when they step out onto the metal grated walkway above the chasm, there isn’t anything I do to stop them. They haul me out into the middle and hoist me up. I take a deep breath, and look the one at my ankles in in the eye. They toss me over.

This time I don’t reach out for the rail.

***

The space that forms around me is dark, damp. There’s a pounding echoing through my head, but there’s no discernable rhythm. A bright light starts to blink in and out of existence. A shape in front of me fritzes in and out before collapsing to the ground, twitching like a body that hasn’t realized it’s dead yet. My head swims, and the room spins, and I hit my knees and vomit.

***

When I wake up, I’m staring up at the ceiling of the infirmary again. There’s an IV drip in my arm and my mouth tastes like death and disease. The bag hanging on the other end of the line is full of light blue liquid that shimmers when I turn my head. My skin is hot and I don’t want anything other than a cold shower. 

“He- hello?” I croak.

The curtain pulled between my bed and the rest of the room twitches then pulls away. My brother stands there looking exhausted and rumpled, shirt wrinkled and dark bags underlining his eyes. He places his hand on my head and smoothes my hair back. 

“What happened?” I whisper.

“You had an allergic reaction to the simulation serum,” Tobias whispers back. “We had to shut the sim down and drag you out. You scared the shit out me, Olivia.”

“I’m sorry.”

I close my eyes and lean into his touch.

“Did I pass?” I ask, afraid to open my eyes and see his reaction.

Tobias chuckles, deep and relieved in his throat, and when I look at him his smile is blinding. He pulls the blankets up to my shoulders and kisses me on the forehead.

“You passed,” he says. “First in your class.”

“Well, shit,” I yawn. 

“Yeah,” he says. “And,” he moves away from my bedside and turns to pick something up. He places a small black box on my lap, “someone left this for you last night.”

I have to strain to pull myself into a sitting position, and my brother takes pity on my and helps, pushing my shoulders forward. The box is about the size of my palm, and unadorned. When I pop the top off, Tobias standing over my shoulder, a black bracelet falls out. It’s tiny, like it was made to fit my wrist, and made of braided leather. There’s a single gem nestled in the middle of the strands that fades from yellow to orange to red when I turn it in the light.

“Who left it?” I ask.

Tobias shrugs.

“Do you have any clue?”

“No,” I say. “But I like it.”

“It’s pretty,” he agrees.

“Put it on for me?” I ask, holding it and my right wrist out to him.

He takes it from he and carefully ties the ends together, making sure they’re secure before dropping his hands away.

“Congratulations, Olivia.”


	12. everybody else means to fight

Tobias drags me out of the infirmary at the end of the day. I have a splitting headache, and my stomach is still queasy, but he insists that I have to attend the initiation celebration; apparently the other transfers convinced the Dauntless to hold off on the party until I was well enough to attend. It’s a nice gesture, even if I don’t really want to go. I tell my brother that if I’m going anywhere other than back to bed then I want a shower, a toothbrush, and a change of clothes.

None of the other transfers are in the room we once shared; now that we’re fully fledged members of Dauntless, we’ll be assigned more private and personal quarters after job selection. I grab my toothbrush and my towel and head towards the bathroom. My brother follows me and sits outside the shower stall while I wash my hair, talking about nonsense and gossip.

“People won bets on you, you know?” he asks as I pull on my pants behind the shower curtain.

“Really?”

“Yeah. A lot of people thought you’d washout or quit before Stage One was up. The few who thought you wouldn’t won pretty big. And then when you came out of Stage Two, they won even bigger. And then, well, now you’re first in your class. They’re pretty happy.”

“And what did you win?” I ask.

“Oh I can’t bet on the initiates,” he says innocently, “on account of having inside information.”

“Yeah, right,” I laugh. “You better be sharing the prize since I’m the one who did all the work.”

“You’ve got double water rations for the next six months,” he grins.

“I knew there was a reason I kept you around!”

***

When Tobias and I wander into the Pit, it seems like the party has already begun, like the Dauntless couldn’t wait any longer. There’s nothing but noise, noise, noise echoing against the walls and down the tunnels, but it’s happy noise. My brother guides me through the crowd, who seems determined to stop me every few feet for congratulations and drink offers. I smile and keep moving. There’s a table in the center of the mass where the other initiates, Dauntless born and transfer alike, are seated.

Az spots me first and waves me over, cheering and sloshing drink out of her bottle. The others join in and soon enough I’m smiling like an idiot as the whole of Dauntless cheers for us. My brother puts a drink in my hand and ushers me over to the table. Az and Harper have both passed, along with Alice, Tamsin, and Connor, but I don’t see Jack or James amongst us. I can’t say it’s too much of a shock.

I watch as Tamsin downs the rest of the drink in her hand, smashes the bottle on the ground, and hauls herself onto the table. Her boots thud as she stomps them on the table top to get everyone’s attention. Slowly, everyone quiets, though a constant murmur buzzes through the crowd. Everyone is looking at her.

Alice hands her another bottle, and Tamsin raises it in the air, “To Olivia!”

“Olivia!” Dauntless cheers, and I feel the blush creeping up my face. The people that can see me laugh.

Tamsin raises her bottle again, and everyone falls quiet.

“To Dauntless!” she cheers, and this time I join in.

***

I’m walking through the tunnels with the same beer bottle in my hand. I’m not drunk, but I’ve never indulged in any kind of alcohol before, so I suppose I’m feeling the effects a little more than someone who has. My head is a little fuzzy, but my vision isn’t doubled and I can remember everything that’s gone on tonight, so I assume I’m not too bad off. I know that when I left the party, the rest of the new members, and my brother, were well on their way to being hammered.

With everyone in the Pit celebrating, the rest of the compound is eerily vacant. The only thing I can hear are the echoes of my bootsteps and a dull thud thud thud coming from…. coming the initiates’ training room. I stop at the door, tilting my head because I hadn’t thought that I was headed in this direction, but most of the tunnels still look the same to me. I place my hand on the frame and crack the door open.

Eric is on a mat, beating the hell out of a punching bag. He’s lost his shirt and shoes, and has wrapped thick bandages around his knuckles. He’s been moving long enough to work up a film of sweat, and well, I’m not blind. He may not be one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, but he is one of the most attractive, and besides a general negative attitude, he hasn’t given me any reason not to like him. I watch him rear back and throw most of his body weight into the next punch, following through so that the bag swings backward. He catches it before it crashes back into him and calls out,

“Stop hiding.”

I startle and nearly drop the bottle in my hands, but manage to push open the door and step in relatively calmly. He’s not paying attention to who’s at the door, merely resituating the strips over his knuckles, but when he looks up, he doesn’t seem surprised that it’s me. My eyes meet his for the briefest moment before he turns his back and reinitiates his attack on the bag. I watch the muscles of his back pull and shift under his skin for a long moment before he says anything else.

“Done with the party already?”

“Not really my scene,” I say quietly.

He hums. I set my bottle on the floor and perch on the edge of the mat. The floor is cold when my fingers ghost across it, so I cross them and tuck my fingertips into my armpits. My hair floats down into my eyes and I reach up to brush it away. I close my eyes and listen to the steady rhythm of Eric’s workout, and I doze into a comfortable space.

***

“Olivia.”

“Olivia.”

“Olivia.”

I swat at the hands that continue to thump me with a pillow. The attack continues until I roll over and manage to kick Az in the knee. She giggles and jumps on me, rolling us both around until we tumble off of the bed and start laughing hysterically. When we’ve both settled down and have caught our breath, Az sits up and straddles my legs.

“I’m so hung over,” she says.

“I’m… I’m,” I laugh, then look around the room. “Where am I?”

“You’re in our room,” she laughs.

“But I didn’t…” I sit up and push her off of me. “I didn’t walk here.”

“No,” Az says, jumping to her feet and holding both of her hands out to me, “you didn’t.”

I take her hands and pull myself to my feet. The room around us is spacious for two people, and equipped with two beds, two dressers, and two closets. There’s a rug on the floor between the two beds printed with grey zig zags. There’s no sign of a private bathroom, but I guess we can’t get everything from the start.

“How did I get here?”

Az giggles and does this little dance that, if she were three, I would assume meant she had to pee.

“I’m not in the mood for mystery,” I whine as my pulse begins to pound behind my eyes. Maybe combining alcohol with a sim serum allergen wasn’t the best idea.

“I am a full blown member of Dauntless,” Az sings, “and so are you!”

“Azalea!” I snap.

She puts her hands over her mouth and laughs.

“How did I get here?”

“Eric brought you,” she says slyly.

“What?” I ask. “I haven’t seen Eric since the beginning of the last stage when he…”

“When he what?” Az asks and I can tell she wants every juicy detail she thinks I’m keeping from her.

“He was the one who injected me with the simulation serum. And then I was in the infirmary, then Four and I were at the party…”

“Eric wasn’t at the party,”Az says. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“No,” I agree, sitting back on my bed. “He was in the training room. I went for a walk when the party got too loud, and I found him. I guess I fell asleep when I sat down.”

“You stayed to watch him work out? Olivia, for shame!”

“What?”

“Look,” Az says, sitting down on the bed opposite mine, “Eric scares the shit out of me. He’s big and he could tear me in half, and he’s never been very nice, but I’m not blind. The man’s far prettier than any of the boys we had in Amity.”

I can’t help a giggle escaping my mouth.

“I had the same thought last night.”

When Az and I are finally able to stop mooning over Eric and the fact that he actually bothered to move me from the training room last night, we decide to clean ourselves up and try to scrounge up some breakfast, never mind that it’s already half past eleven in the morning; I can’t imagine that anyone who didn’t have a pre-assigned duty being up before noon. Az shows me to the bathroom we share with several other women, and mentions that she went ahead and moved all of my things from our old room.

“Did you get my book?” I ask as I start up the shower.

“What book?” she asks.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say thinly. “I’ll look around.”

The commissary is suspiciously quiet when we get there, even though most of the tables are full. No one talks louder than a whisper so Az and I gather what food we can carry, which happens to be a few apples, a bunch of grapes, and a banana, and head out into the Pit where the people who didn’t party as hard are a little more lively. Everyone seems to recognize us, tossing congratulations and good wishes our way.

As Az and I walk around, stretching our legs without any real destination in mind, I begin to tell her of the first time my brother and I nearly got into serious trouble together. It had been my second year of school, Four’s third, and there had been a younger Erudite girl who didn’t like leaving her mother behind. She had been picked on by a boy in my year and when I told my brother, he insisted that we needed to stand up for her. The tale ends with the bully’s older brother, older than both Four and me, getting involved, and scolding his kid brother before dragging him home to his parents.

It’s when I’m nearing the end of my story, after we’ve finished off all of our food, and I’m waving my hands around to try and get my point across that Az grabs ahold of my arm, turning it this way and that. It takes me a moment to realize that she’s examining the new bracelet on my wrist.

“Where did you get this?” she asks. “I want one!”

“Um,” I stutter, and I can feel my face heating up. “Someone left it for me the night I was in the infirmary. I don’t know who.”

“And you’re just telling me now?” she squeals and hauls my wrist in for another close look. “This looks like it cost quite a few points. Who do we know that has a few to spare? There’s your brother, but he would have told you it was from him. I’d buy something like this, but I think I used all of this month’s points and most of next month’s getting drunk last night. Harper’s out. Connor’s out.”

“Why is Connor eve considered?” I interrupt.

“Olivia,” she says slowly. “Have you never noticed the way that boy looks at you?”

“No,” I say flatly. “I’ve been a bit too busy fighting for my life.”

“He thinks the moon shines out your ass, by the way he was talking last night,” she smirks.

“Who’s got a crush on Olivia?”

Az and I both startle and squeal. Cate has managed to sneak up behind us. He looks rough, hair all over the place and skin sallow, but I assume that means she enjoyed herself last night. Her clothes aren’t clean, and she still smells like beer, but she’s wide awake like she has been for hours.

“We don’t know,” Az says, “but look! He gave her a present!”

Az shoves my wrist under Cate’s nose and the older blonde takes a moment to study it.

“Very nice,” she says. “This is a Nobel Red gem, not very common. You are one lucky lady.”

When Az raises her eyebrows, Cate says,

“I had a friend who transferred to Erudite. Books about mining and gemstones were her favorites. She once took me through each shop that sells pretty baubles to identify each type of stone.”

“Books on…” I blink. “Shit, Az, my book!”

“What? Olivia, where are you going?”

***

I’ve looked under each mattress, pillow, and dresser, in every set of sheets and each drawer, and I cannot find my mother’s book. I’m panicking a little, kicking myself for forgetting to look for it. There’s nothing left of the initiates in the room, so I set about putting everything in its place before sinking onto the bed that used to be mine.

“This is useless,” I whisper to myself. “No one knew it was here, so there’s no telling who found it.”

“Found what?”

I look up. Tobias is standing in the doorway watching me.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Someone came to tell me that my little sister was tearing up the initiates’ bunkroom. What did you find?”

“It’s what I didn’t find,” I say hauling myself off of the bed and towards Tobias. “I brought mom’s book with me. I left it under the mattress, but Az moved my stuff, and I don’t know where it’s gone.”

“You mean this book?” he asks, holding up a green and orange battered paperback.

“Shit, Tobias,” I say, snatching it from his hands and holding it to my chest. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“Eric gave it to me,” he says flatly.

“Where did Eric get…”

“He said you asked him to pass it on.”

“Asshole,” I say without any real push behind it. “I asked him to make sure you got it if I didn’t pass initiation.”

“I dare you to call him that to his face,” my brother smirks.

“I think I have,” I say, lacing Tobias’s fingers through mine and tugging him away from the door. “Come on. I want to spend more time with my brother before I have to pick a job tomorrow.”

“I want cake,” he says and I laugh.


	13. in your most frail gestures are things which enclose me

Tobias and I are sitting on the roof of Dauntless headquarters. I’m wrapped in my own jacket this time, and we both have bottles in our hands, though neither of us have done any more than sip. There are clouds overhead and the occasional rumble of thunder, but it isn’t yet close enough to worry us. I set my bottle on the gravel between my feet and flop over onto my brother so that his shoulder is holding most of my weight.

“Why are Max and the other leaders holding the assignment lists?” I ask.

Two days ago, the others and I had been allowed to pick the jobs we preferred from those available. When I chose to occupy the space in the infant development room, under the supervision of Fanny, Max, Eric, and the other three leaders hadn’t looked happy. When we didn’t get our confirmations by breakfast the next morning, Alice told us that that was unusual; the leaders normally try to fill every vacant position as quickly and as ably as possible.

“You’re first in your class,” Tobias says, “and you chose to do something that’s supposed to be a punishment assignment. Firsts and seconds are normally groomed for leadership positions unless they’re uncommonly stupid, and you’re not. They’re probably going to sit you down and try to talk you into a higher position so they can evaluate how valuable you could be in the future.”

“Sounds annoying,” I comment.

“It is, and they won’t take no for an answer, but if you keep saying it, they won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. They’ll try to keep you happy in hopes of changing your mind.”

“So what do I do in the meantime?”

“Whatever you want.”

***

“You haven’t been assigned to me yet,” Fanny says, eyeing me suspiciously.

I shrug my shoulders, “I wasn’t assigned to you between the first two stages of initiation, but I still spent most of my time in here. I like babies better than I like parties.”

“Same amount of noise,” she says drily.

“Babies don’t say ‘hold my beer and watch this’ before trying to back flip off of a table,” I say, thinking of Harper the night of the initiation party.

“Touché,” she says and hands me Adele. “Adele’s mother’s name is Liz. She’s one of the commanding officers for the fence and they’ve been having problems with duty attendance so she’s been assigned out there for the next week to straighten things up.”

“I get Adele?”

“You get Adele,” she says, rolling her eyes and handing me the sling that was wrapped around her shoulder. “She doesn’t cry much, but she doesn’t like loud noises either, so she’ll be a good excuse to avoid the parties. I’ll have the stuff you’ll need ready after dinner. Now go away.”

“You’re my favorite person on the planet, Fanny,” I say as she closes the door in my face.

Adele gurgles in my arms.

“You’re my real favorite person,” I whisper to her, “and I get you for a whole week. I really hope Az won’t mind.”

Her tiny hand pats me on the face and I smile.

***

By the time Adele and I make it to the commissary, it’s well passed the usual crowd time, though there’s still a scattering of other Dauntless. I wander through the line and pick out an apple and a bunch of grapes for me, and a bowl of mashed potatoes for Adele. There isn’t any pudding left, to my disappointment. We find an empty table in the corner and sit down, Adele propped in my lap so that she can see everything around her.

Before I even have a spoon in my hand, she’s looking at me expectantly with her mouth wide open. She barely gives herself time to swallow before demanding another bite; if I’m too slow to provide food, she prods my stomach and makes an insistent noise.

“You’re so pushy,” I tell her, offering her the spoon again. She chomps her gums around it and opens for more. “And so hungry. Haven’t they been feeding you, sweet girl?”

“Mah,” she says, and opens her mouth for more.

By the time I’ve run out of potatoes, Adele is still hungry, so I feed her bits of squished up grapes until she quiets and refuses to open her mouth any more. Her weight is heavy on my sternum as she retreats from the table and leans back on my chest. I settle her in the sling, fabric pulled over her so that the lights in the commissary, as dull as they are, don’t wake her. When I look at the table, I’ve got an apple and three grapes left, so I eat what I’ve got and get ready to retreat to my room.

My apple core and the grape vine go in the garbage, to be used as fertilizer on the Amity farms after decomposition, and I tuck my arm under Adele’s swing to make sure that she doesn’t bounce too much from my movement. The Pit is lively when I make my way through, so I wave to the people I know and move on. Az isn’t in our room, which is sort of a blessing, so I steel the pillows off of her bed and arrange them with mine until I have a solid border on my mattress in which to lay the baby.

I take Adele out of the sling and put her in the middle of the pillows. I slip her tiny little combat boots off, and make sure she isn’t too cold without a blanket. Thoroughly exhausted from keeping up with Adele, I settle down on the mattress with my hand on her chest, and slip off to sleep myself.

***

I feel Adele crying before I hear her; the vibrations in her chest tickle the palm of my hand. My first reaction is to soothe her, to pick her up and cradle her to my chest, and make sure she knows that nothing bad is happening. I’m so concerned with Adele being upset that it takes me a moment to realize why: there’s an insistent knocking coming from the other side of the door. I settle Adele on my hip, tuck her face into my neck and slide off the bed. Answering the door is a simple twist and yank on the knob, and I nearly get knocked on the nose for it.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I whisper loudly. “You woke the baby!”

“How was I supposed to know you had a baby?” Eric whispers back.

“When she started crying would have been a good clue!”

I turn away from the door and start to pace the room, rocking Adele back and forth and humming under my breath until her crying quiets to whimpering. I wipe her face off with the collar of my shirt and see Eric frown out of the corner of my eye.

“It’s baby snot, not poison,” I say.

I lay Adele back down on the bed, and pick her shoes up from the top of my dresser.

“Did you need something?” I ask, tying the laces. “Or did you just come to ruin nap time?”

“Max asked me to come find you,” he says, leaning on the door frame.

“Is this when he wants to try and convince me to pick another job?”

“Four warned you,” he says.

“He did,” I say, “and I can tell you that I have no interest in taking any kind of job that could lead to, well, leadership.”

I throw the sling over my shoulder and pick up the baby to settle her inside. She yawns when I lay her on her back and I smile at her, running a finger down the side of her face.

“He’ll still want to talk to you.”

“Max can wait,” I say. “It’s time for Adele’s next meal, and she gets grumpy when she’s hungry.”

I step back into my own shoes and tie the laces loosely; I’ll tie them better when I don’t have a baby to spill. As a second thought, I dig around in my top dresser drawer for a hair tie and pull my hair into a bun on the back of my head. Eric is still standing in the door when I’m ready to leave, and he doesn’t look like he’ll be moving soon, which is proven when I try to shoo him away so I can close the door. He raises an eyebrow at me, so I plant my hand in the center of his chest and push until he either has to step back or fall over. It’s an easier task than I imagined.

“How is this going to go?” I ask as Eric follows me down the hall. “Max asks until I finally give in?”

“You’re first in your class. Firsts are meant to move farther up.”

“How does that make any sense?” I ask. “You can’t tell me that someone hasn’t passed initiation just because they were some big dumb brute, too stupid to know _how_ to be scared. What about that? If I was too stupid to know how to be scared, and I came in first, would you still want me to do whatever it is you want me to do?”

“Of course not,” he says.

“Then why are you singling me out just because I came in first?”

“Because part of initiation is designed to reflect on how capable an initiate is. You can strategize, and you’re not an idiot. You made choices in your Landscape to stop being afraid, and not many people can do that.”

“ _That_ ,” I say strongly, stopping our progress again with a finger to Eric’s chest. He looks down at me. “That is what you say when you offer someone a different position, not this bullshit about being first in class. I know it chafes you to be nice, but you can at least be honest.”

***

Eric follows me though the commissary to the kitchen door. The same boy who answered when I knocked a few weeks ago opens the door again, and I don’t even have to ask before he’s handing me a jar of mashed carrots and a spoon.

“Can I have another jar?” I ask. “She wanted more than I had at lunch.”

The boy nods his head and ducks back into the kitchen. He comes back with a jar of peas, still cold from the fridge, so I thank him and slip them into my pocket to warm them up. Eric follows me when I head back into the tunnels.

“So where’s Max?”

“Aren’t you going to feed Adele?”

“She won’t eat in the commissary; too many people making too much noise. I can feed her wile I talk to Max.”

“If you say so,” he says, and turns us down another tunnel.

We end up skirting the Pit and taking the rickety staircase to the upper levels with the glass floor. There are several groups of Dauntless around, boxing, playing on the tight rope, chasing each other in a giant game of tag. Az spots me and calls my name, waving me over to join the game, but I just wiggle my fingers at her and continue on; she’ll have questions for me later.

Max’s office is on the other side of the compound, tucked away where it can’t be bothered by the noise of the casual area. It’s smaller than I thought it would be, dim and comfortable. There are several monitors on the wall, though they all display the Dauntless symbol instead of any information or camera feeds. There are two chairs in front of his desk. Eric raps on the open door and Max ushers us both inside. I take a seat in one of the chairs, happy to have Adele’s weight off of my shoulder; Eric stays standing, and leans over the back of the other chair.

“How do you like your new quarters, Olivia?” Max asks.

“Better than the room we all shared together,” I say honestly, opening the jar of carrots and offering Adele the spoon.

“Disagreements?” he asks.

“No. Harper snores like a chainsaw.”

“It seems to be his roommate’s problem now.”

“Sure.”

Adele bats me on the chest, so I give her another bite of food.

Max leans forward in his chair, “Tell me why you chose to work in the infant room.”

“I like babies,” I say.

“You are first in your class. Surely you want something better for yourself?”

“Like what?”

“There is a position in the control room available, another on the wall.”

“Sitting still doesn’t work for me. I like to keep my hands busy.”

“You would be active on the wall.”

“I would be trapped on the wall. There hasn’t been a disturbance for as long as anyone can remember; what’s to say there ever will be? Watching Amity farm their fields and waiting for something to happen doesn’t sound that great to me either.”

Max sits back in his chair. His eyes flit to Eric, but I don’t turn to watch him.

“What about city patrols?” Eric asks.

“Dauntless doesn’t patrol the city anymore,” I say.

“Not near the Hub,” Max says, “but the factionless are still overwhelming in numbers in the sector between Dauntless and Erudite. Their agitation will grow as food sources run low over the winter. Erudite has expressed concern that they may move on the closest factions before trying to take Amity.”

“Why not just take Amity?”

“They can’t reach the Amity compound without passing through Dauntless territory first. Amity is confident that the food supplies will hold out, but they’ve been wrong before. The patrol isn’t for force,” he says, “but we feel the need to show our presence to remind everyone that there is a force to protect the civilization we have.”

“Patrols work in a weekly rotation,” Eric says. “Seven days on, seven days off. Each patrol is split into two halves, one for each twelve hour shift. You can work the infant room on your days off of patrol, or you can bum around the Pit like everyone else.”

“What happens if I don’t like it?” I ask suspiciously.

“Patrol schedules are reevaluated every six months,” Max says.

I look down at Adele in my arms, knawing on the end of the spoon because I’ve neglected to continue feeding her.

“I’ll think about it.”

***

I continue to feed Adele as I walk back to my room. Eric follows me, though he doesn’t say anything. As I turn down one of the hallways, she puts his hand on my shoulder and shuffles me over so I don’t run into a rough wall.

“Thanks,” I say, glancing up at him. He’s watching me back.

Az still isn’t in our room when we get back, so I leave the door open and lay the baby back in the nest I’d made for her earlier; she’d fallen asleep as soon as I’d finished feeding her the jar of carrots. I rotate my shoulder, sore from carrying her weight around all day, and realize that I never stopped by the infant room to get Adele’s supplies from Fanny. I groan.

“What?” Eric asks.

He’s leaning in my doorway again. Huh.

“I forgot to get Adele’s things from Fanny. I’ll have to see if Az can get them when she gets back. If I wake the baby up now she’ll never go back to sleep.”

“I’ll get them,” he says, standing up with both feet on the ground.

“Thanks,” I say, eyebrows furrowed.

He disappears, and I go about changing Adele out of her clothes, and carefully scooting her around so that I can return Az’s pillows to her bed and still keep the baby from falling off of the mattress. I crack the door, but don’t close it all the way, and strip of my boots, pants, and tank top, changing into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt instead. By the time Eric returns, I’m rubbing Adele’s tummy.

I take the bag he brings me, and root around to make sure that Fanny included clean clothes and diapers. Adele whimpers when I shift on the bed, so I put the bag on the floor, and return to rubbing her tummy.

Eric is still standing in my doorway.

“Come in and sit down,” I say, “or go somewhere else. Stop standing there.”

He takes his first step into my room, and sinks into the single chair that Az shoved into the corner by the door; it hasn’t done much more than hold dirty clothes until now. As quiet as we are, I have time to look at Eric, really look at him. He’s tall, taller than me or my brother, and wide enough that the corner he’s sitting in looks positively tiny. The chair is a little too short for him and it makes his knees look just a little too tall. He’s wearing a short sleeved black shirt, and black pants, just like he always is. I can see the tattoos running down his forearms more easily. They still look fresh despite the weeks that have passed since I saw him walk into the studio.

“Why did you really choose the position in the infant room?” he asks quietly.

“I like babies,” I say again. “They smile at you, and they’re simple, and they’re our future. Someone has to do it.”

“It’s usually punishment detail.”

“I don’t see it that way. It was something to look forward to at the end of each day during initiation.”

“Why?”

“Babies are simple,” I smile. “They’re not out to knock you from the competition.”

I look down at Adele.

“What did you choose when you passed initiation?” I ask.

“There was a position in the armory open,” he says.

“Why did you choose that?”

“Bullets don’t talk,” he says dully.

“I can stop talking,” I say quietly, “if that was a hint.”

“It wasn – ”

The door flies open and bangs against the wall, waking Adele and making her cry.

“Olivia!” Az shouts. “Guess what?”

She reeks of beer and sweat.

“Shut up,” I growl and scoop up the baby from the bed. Az doesn’t seem to notice that she’s upset anyone.

Eric stands from the chair in the corner and backs Az out of the door, who continues to try and talk over Adele’s wailing. I bounce Adele, and don’t bother to try and answer Az. I hear Eric snarl something quietly, but I can’t understand what, and Az stops talking. Adele quiets down to hiccups and the occasional yell, so I pack up her bag with one hand, shoving my toothbrush and book in alongside her things, and make the decision to stay the night in the infant room. I step out of our room without shoes, and regret it when a chill runs up my legs, but I don’t bother to retrieve my boots either. Az is standing against the opposite wall with Eric’s hand placed firmly over her mouth.

“How drunk are you?” I ask, and she begins to try and talk a mile a minute behind Eric’s hand. “Shh. Stop. Go in there, and go to sleep, and I hope you wake up with the worst hangover ever tomorrow morning.”

“Where are you going?” she asks loudly when Eric moves his hand.

“SHHHHHHH!” I scold. “I’m going to spend the night in the infant room.”

“I can come with you!”

“Go. To. Bed.” I demand, pointing her through the door to her own bed.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” I growl. “Now stop talking and go to bed.”

Az shrugs and skips through the door, closing it loudly behind her. Eric and I can hear her talking loudly to herself before he takes me by the elbow and moves me down the tunnel. Adele is still whimpering and moving around in discomfort, and her bag is slipping off of my shoulders, and my feet are cold, and I’m surprised when Eric reaches out to take the baby from me. He sets her against his chest, one hand holding her firmly, and lets her tuck her head into the collar of his shirt. Free handed, I pull the bag back onto my shoulders and take the opportunity to roll the waist of my pants so that the hems aren’t dragging the ground.

“Thanks,” I whisper.

“Come on,” he says, turning away from me. “I have a couch.”

“What? No, I can sleep in the infant room.”

“The infant room doesn’t have a crib big enough for you, small as you are.”

“Ignoring that jab at my size,” I say, “I can sleep on the floor just fine.”

“I have a couch,” he says again, and walks away.

“Eric!” I protest, but I can’t be too loud for fear of waking Adele. I throw my hands in the air and give up.

Eric’s room is more like an apartment, and level with the ceiling of the Pit, so he actually has windows. It’s surprisingly neater than I would have thought, if I spent any time at all thinking about what his room would look like, which I haven’t, and airy; it looks occupied, not lived in. He does have a couch, wide and black, just like the massive bed tucked into the corner. There are two other doors, and I assume one of them is a bathroom.

“I feel like all I’ve done today is thank you,” I say quietly, dropping Adele’s bag by the end of the couch.

“No, you’ve yelled at me, too.”

I roll my eyes and perch on the edge of the couch, thoroughly chilled by my lack of shoes and the temperature in the room. Eric drops a pillow on the couch and places both hands on Adele to hand her back to me; she’s stopped whimpering, though she’s still frowning in her sleep. He tugs me off of the couch and nudges me in the direction of the bed.

“No,” I say firmly. “This is where I put my foot down: I’m not taking your bed.”

“Should I be offended?” he asks.

“I could have stayed in the infant room!”

“When I said I had a couch, I meant that’s where I would be sleeping. There isn’t enough room for both you and Adele on it.”

Shit. He’s right.

“Besides,” he says, “it should only be for one night. If Azalea’s still drunk tomorrow, she can find somewhere else to stay.”

“She hates it when you call her that,” I say absently.

“That’s why I do it,” he grins. “Take the bed.”

I make another nest for Adele before joining her on the mattress. It hasn’t gotten any warmer since we got here, so I burrow down under the blankets and make sure Adele is covered. I watch Eric shuffle around the room before grabbing another pair of pants out of his own dresser and retreating to the bathroom. When he comes back out, he’s lost his shirt and shoes and changed. He drops down onto the couch and stretches out with his arms over his head.

“It’s cold in here,” I grumble once he stops moving, just as one last protest that we would have been fine elsewhere.

“That’s the way I like it,” he says, and that’s the last thing I really remember before drifting off.


	14. dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine

Adele wakes me up about two in the morning, demanding a new diaper and more food. I shush her, and turn to check the clock on my bedside table, except it’s not there because I’m not in my room. I’m in Eric’s. I slip out from under the blankets and lay Adele on my chest; she’s usually a little less fussy when she knows you’re paying attention to her. The room is dim, lit only by the emergency lights on the corners of the outer buildings in the compound, so it takes me a moment to remember where I left the baby’s bag.

I tip toe over to the edge of the couch, where Eric is still dead to the world, and crouch down next to his ear to dig through the bag. I find a diaper, bottle and container of powered formula easily enough, but I can’t find the nipple for Adele to eat out of. Eric shifts on the cushion, stretches out and blinks his eyes open.

“Go back to sleep,” I murmur.

He sits up instead, rubs his hands over his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice gravelly and hoarse from sleep.

“Nothing. It’s feeding time again and I can’t find the stupid nipple.”

“Watch your eyes,” he says, and I cover Adele’s face with my hand and close my eyes. I hear a switch turn and when I open my eyes, dim light is coming from a lap set behind the couch.

I sigh and continue to search for the nipple in the bottom the bag. Eric pushes on my shoulder and I lean back without thinking about it. He scoops Adele out of my arms and cradles her against his bare chest, leaving me free to empty the bag and finally find the bottle topper shoved in a corner of the fabric.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asks sleepily.

“Do you know how to make a bottle?”

He blinks.

“Three quarters of the way full with warm water,” I say, holding the bottle out to him, “two scoops of power. Shake.”

He takes the bottle from me and I take Adele from him. I lay her out on a blanket from her bag and change her diaper as quickly as I can, making sure she’s clean, before dressing her again. She’s a little more relaxed when she’s clean and warm, so I shuffle her back into my arms, take the dirty diaper and head for the bathroom. Eric is standing over the sink filling the bottle with water, so I slip by him and dump the diaper down the trash chute that’s standard in every bathroom in the compound. When he’s done putting the bottle together, he takes the baby again and moves over so I can wash my hands.

He doesn’t go far, and I’m able to watch his reflection in the mirror. His movements are slow and heavy, like he’s not quite awake, so I’m surprised that he has enough sleep sense to cover the tip of the nipple before shaking the bottle. Watching him with Adele is…it’s nice. He doesn’t look like a Dauntless leader at two in the morning with no shirt and a baby. I dry my hands on the hem of my shirt without thinking about it, and lean on the door frame to watch him pace the apartment, cradling Adele and feeding her the bottle.

When the bottle is halfway gone, Adele turns her face away and refuses to eat any more. Eric sits back on the couch and rests her against his chest and sets the bottle on the floor.

“Hang on,” I say, pulling another blanket from the bag. “She can’t sleep just yet.”

I lay the blanket over my shoulder and take Adele again. I prop her up higher than I normally would and start to rock back and forth, patting her back. Eric watches me burp the baby, and I don’t have anything to do other than watch him back. He looks tired, like he doesn’t need anything else but to sleep for three days, and I guess Adele and I aren’t helping.

“I’m sorry she woke you up,” I whisper. “Guess I should have warned you.”

“Doesn’t bother me,” he says.

“Yes it does,” I snort. “It bothers everyone.”

“That isn’t – ” he sighs. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I didn’t know it was likely. Babies cry. It’s what they do.”

“Hm.”

It takes another ten minutes for Adele to burp and go back to sleep deeply enough that I feel comfortable moving her. I take her back to the bed and nest her back in the pillows, and hope that she sleeps until morning. Without Adele’s body heat I’m reminded of how cold it is in the room’ I’m surprised I can’t see my own breath. I shimmy back on the mattress, making sure that I don’t disturb the baby, and huddle back down under the sheets, pulling at them until I’m tucked into as little space as possible. Eric turns the lamp off.

“Thank you, Eric,” I say in the direction of the couch, but I think he’s already asleep.

***

Lunch the next day is actually nice. Harper and I are sitting with Tamsin in the corner of the commissary discussing what we would actually like to do for Dauntless, not just the openings available now; Adele is napping in the infant room. I’m playing with the last of my banana pudding when Harper taps the table in front of my bowl and points behind me. As is standing there with a tray of her own, shifting from one foot to the other. She looks awful, hair pulled back and greasy, dark marks under her eyes, and clothes rumpled and creased.

“Hi,” she says weakly. “Can I sit by you?”

I nod and she shuffles onto the bench next to me.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she says. “I was really drunk.”

“I know,” I say shortly.

“And I’m sorry I made the baby cry and interrupted your date.”

Harper and I both start to chock on the food in our mouths. Tamsin laughs and thumps Harper on the back, but Az just offers me her water bottle when I can breathe again.

“What date?” I cough out.

“Oh, that wasn’t a date?” she asks innocently and I immediately turn what’s left of my pudding over onto her food. “I guess not.”

“Not a date,” I confirm. “You look awful.”

She nods. “I was woken up at six-thirty this morning to help the janitors clean the windows at the top of the Pit. I’ve been on the roof since then.”

“What the hell for?” Harper asks.

“Oh, I volunteered,” Az says wistfully, but underneath the table her knee knocks with mine.

“I knew you were bat shit crazy,” Tamsin says, “the lot of you.”

***

After lunch, I leave Adele with Fanny for a little while longer and climb the rusted staircase to the glass floored room above the Pit. I remember the way to the Control Room pretty well, but even so I make sure that no one is watching me when I slip through the door. Just like I was hoping, Tobias is in the chair in front of the wall of monitors. I jump the three stairs to his level and balance on the arm of the chair without so much as a hello, and pull my knees up to my chin.

“Good morning, Olivia,” my brother says. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”

“It’s not my fault you take your meals at odd hours,” I grumble.

“Where’s the baby you’re keeping?”

“With Fanny in the infant room; it’s time for her nap.”

He takes a few notes with an old fashioned pad and paper before scooting it away, and turning to face me in the chair.

“What’s wrong?”

“Max and Eric talked to me yesterday,” I tell him, “about taking another position. They offered me patrol between Dauntless and Erudite, every other week, twelve hour shifts.”

“I am aware of how the patrol schedule works.”

“And I told them I’d think about it. And then when we were done, Eric walked back to my room with me. And I had Adele, but I forgot to go get the rest of her things from Fanny, and Eric said he would get them. And he did, he came back with everything I needed. So I was putting Adele to sleep, and we were just talking, and Az came into the room and she was drunk and made a lot of noise and she woke the baby up, and I told her I was going to spend the night in the infant room so that she wasn’t disturbing Adele, except I didn’t because Eric said he had a couch so I spent the night in his room.”

“Olivia.”

“And then Adele woke us both up at two o’clock this morning, and he volunteered to make a bottle for her while I changed her, and then he fed her, and he said that it didn’t bother him that she had woken him up. And then we went back to sleep like it was nothing, like it was something we do every day, we just share a room and take care of kids in the middle of the night. And then this morning I dropped Adele off with Fanny and I went to have lunch with Harper and Tamsin and Az came to sit with us and she apologized for coming in drunk, and waking the baby, and interrupting my date, except I wasn’t on a date, I was just sitting there and talking to Eric, so I’m really confused, and then Az told me that she was made to clean the windows on the roof of the Pit this morning because she volunteered, except I know she did no such thing, so I think maybe Eric made her do it.”

I take a deep breath and sigh, pushing my hair out of my face.

“You spent the night in Eric’s room?” Tobias laughs.

“You are such an asshole!” I say, smacking him on the arm. “That’s not the point.”

“The point,” he says, “is that it sounds like you have a crush on Eric.”

“You’re not helping!”

“What am I supposed to do about it?” he asks. “Do you want me to tell you that you’re not allowed to? That you can’t make your own decisions? You’re sixteen years old, and I know that doesn’t give you much experience, it doesn’t give anyone much experience, but society says you’re an adult now. I can’t tell you what to do or what not to do just because I don’t like him.”

“Tell me why you don’t like him!”

“I don’t,” he pauses. “I don’t have a concrete reason. We initiated in the same class, and it was, it was a lot more vicious than this year. Too many tempers, and too much equal competition. There wasn’t a leader in our group, so it felt like we were all in position to be cut. To be honest, Eric is the one guy in my class that I can actually stand to look in the eye. So it’s not dislike really, a lot of us just feel like we still haven’t left the competition.”

“He let Adele and me take the bed,” I say quietly, picking at a loose thread on my pants, “and he slept on the couch.”

“Eric is complicated,” Tobias says carefully, “like you and I are complicated, if that makes sense.”

I think of Marcus and all the shit Tobias and I left behind in Abnegation.

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“And for what it’s worth? I think he likes you back.”

***

“Sure,” Fanny agrees, “I can keep Adele for the night. Too much for you already?”

“No, I just need a night to think.”

She reaches around me and pulls the door to the infant room shut.

“This have anything to do with Eric dropping by to get Adele’s stuff last night?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s about time,” she sighs. “You sleep with him yet?”

I can feel my face heat up.

“Fanny!” I scold, and she cackles.

***

Az and Harper are both lying on Az’s bed when I get back to my room. I trudge through the door and pull it closed behind me, sagging back against the cool wood once it latches. They both stop their conversation to look at me and watch as I take the few steps towards my bed to collapse face first onto the mattress.

“Anything you want to tell us?” Az asks.

“No,” I grumble into my pillow.

I hear Az’s mattress creak and the next thing I know she’s planted herself on my back. She pulls the band out of my hair and begins to twist it into several tiny braids. Harper continues to take up Az’s bed and watches. After she has braided my braids into braids and has started twirling them around her fingers, she asks,

“Anything you want to tell us now? Like about Eric? Or the fact that you stayed in his room last night? Because I checked: you definitely did not stay in the infant room last night.”

“I want to tell you to get your fat ass off of me.”

She yanks hard on one of my braids and I throw an elbow back into her thigh.

“So do you like him back?” Harper asks.

“Back?” I ask, pulling my face out of my pillow.

“Well it’s obvious that he likes you, so do you like him back?”

“I don’t think it’s _obvious_ ,” Az says, “but it’s pretty damn close.”

“Maybe,” I mumble into my pillow.

“What was that?” Az asks.”

I burry my face in my pillow and twist my hips until Az falls to the floor laughing.

***

Long after the lights have dimmed in the tunnels and Harper has retreated to his own room, Az and I lay on my bed and whisper about everything and nothing. This is the girliest thing I’ve done in, well, ever; I didn’t have any friends after Tobias left Abnegation, and there was no way I was going to risk making more and having them discover what went on in my house. Having a friend that’s here because she wants to be is nice.

“I think it’s kind of cute,” Az says, “the crush that Eric’s got on you.”

“Az….”

“No, don’t get me wrong, he still terrifies me, and he’s unnecessarily mean sometimes, but he’s not to you. Sometimes I think he looks at you like a real human being, not just another member of the faction he’s risen through the ranks of. He looks at Four like that, and at Max, and a few people that are older than him, but he doesn’t look at them like he wants to kiss them, not like he looks at you.”

“I did stay in his room last night,” I say quietly. “He slept on the couch and he let Adele and I take the bed. She woke us up this morning about two and he just sat there and fed her, and, and it was nice. He wasn’t a Dauntless leader, he was just Eric.”

“I,” she pauses. “I cannot tell you how ridiculously adorable that sounds.”

“It kind of was.”

“I’ll give him points for….points! Olivia, points!”

She reaches out and shakes my shoulder the best she can while we’re lying down.

“Az, what are you talking about?”

“That bracelet!”

She grabs my arm, and sure enough I’m still wearing the bracelet that someone left me on the night I passed initiation; it hasn’t left my wrist.

“ _Eric_ has enough points to spare to buy this! He’s the one that left it for you!”

I pull my hand out of hers, and look at the bracelet still tied securely around my wrist: the braided black leather is still soft and strong, and the red-orange-yellow gem in the center is still just as pretty as it was when it fell out of the box. I know I’m blushing.


	15. if this should be, i say if this should be –

I’m sitting in the rocking chair in the nursery, Adele in my lap, and my feet propped up on the edge of one of the cribs. We’re the only two in the room, though I can hear Fanny and the toddlers next door, so when Adele starts to wobble with sleep, I don’t have a second thought about pulling my mother’s book from the bag I’ve been carrying around for the baby.

“If freckles were lovely, and day was night,” I murmur to Adele, rubbing her tummy and watching her dose off, “And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,/ Life would be delight,—/ But things couldn’t go right/ For in such a sad plight/ I wouldn’t be I.// If earth was heaven and now was hence,/ And past was present, and false was true,/ There might be some sense/ But I’d be in suspense/ For on such a pretense,/ You wouldn’t be you.// If fear was plucky, and globes were square,/ And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee/ Things would seem fair,—/ Yet they’d all despair,/ For if here was there/ We wouldn’t be we.”

***

“Olivia. Olivia. Olivia.”

I blink my eyes open to someone calling my name. Tobias is kneeling next to the rocking chair, hand heavy on my arm. My neck hurts, and when I move my hands to rub at the skin there, I realize I’m no longer holding Adele. I look around quickly and my brother squeezes my arm to get my attention back.

“Relax,” he says, “Adele’s with Fanny. She came to check on you a few hours ago and you were both out like lights. She took the baby and left you here to sleep.”

“My neck hurts,” I tell him.

“That’s what you get when you sleep most of the day away in a rocking chair.”

“What time is it?”

“Six-thirty. I thought you might want dinner.”

“Shit, who let me sleep so long?”

“Olivia,” Tobias says, hauling me out of the chair by my forearms, “Fanny has been in here twice to try and wake you up. She sent for me when she was unsuccessful.”

“Well, shit,” I say again, raking my finger through my hair. The strands reach down to my lower back; I wonder what it would be like to have them cut.

“How have you been sleeping?” he asks quietly.

“Normally,” I shrug. “Nightmares most nights, tossing and turning, the usual.”

“Marcus, still?”

“When isn’t it Marcus?” I ask.

“When it’s everything else.”

“Point.”

“Dinner?” he asks.

“Sure. I’ll get Adele after we’re done.”

Neither Az nor Harper are in the commissary when my brother and I make it through the line, but Cate is, so we sit with her. Her tray is piled high with several hamburgers, and two slices of cake, while I just have the normal selection of fruits, vegetables, and banana pudding.

“Hey, check it out, it’s the wonder twins,” Cate greets. “Are you both sleeping with Eric, or is it just Olivia?”

“Does anyone here keep their noses to themselves?” I ask.

“No,” Tobias says.

“And I’m not sleeping with Eric,” I say to Cate.

“But you want to.”

“Still not your business.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I’d sleep with him in an instant,” she says around the food in her mouth.

“It doesn’t.”

***

“Are you going back to bed?” Tobias asks after we finish our food and drag ourselves away from Cate.

“I’m going to get Adele, and go from there. I _feel_ like I could sleep another day.”

He hooks his elbow around my neck and pulls me in for a hug, our first since I passed initiation. He’s warmer than the rest of the complex, and it reminds me of how cold I’ve been; I guess I’ll have to start wearing my jacket around the compound.

“It’ll take a little while,” he whispers in my ear, “but one day you’ll wake up and you’ll realize that Marcus can’t touch us here. He’s not our father, and he’s not our faction, he’s not our blood.”

“Faction before blood,” I whisper back. “Come on. There’s something we’re going to do before I pick up Adele.”

***

Her name is Tori, and she’s the one who has done both Tobias’s and Eric’s tattoos. She’s got olive colored skin, and pretty black dreadlocks, and multiple tattoos of her own. She greets my brother like an old friend, and I guess if the size of a tattoo is linked to the time spent with an artist, then it makes sense; Tobias’s tattoos are pretty extensive.

I explain to her what I want, the size, and the shape, and where I want it to curve. She smiles, like she knows a secret she won’t share, and tells me to take a seat in her chair. My shirt comes off, but sharing a room with nine other people during initiation has left me free of embarrassment. She sets the needle to my skin and it feels like a punch to my ribs before settling down and stretching out, warm like a house cat in the sun. It feels like jitters in my bones, a constant vibration that feels like a lover talking. When Tori’s done, she slathers my side with a cooling gel, and walks me thorough the instructions for keeping it clean and preventing infection and fading.

“She hasn’t heard a word I’m saying,” she says to my brother. “She’s too blissed out.”

“You’ll see her in here more often that you’ve seen me,” he agrees. “I’ll make sure she knows what’s what when she comes down from her cloud.”

“Thanks, Four. I’ll see you next week.”

***

“Hi, baby,” I say, taking Adele from Fanny. She grins at me and babbles, and I bounce her in my arms.

“You sure do look happy,” Fanny comments. “That have anything to do with Eric?”

“Not a thing in the world,” I say.

She looks me over, watches me wince when Adele manages to kick me in the upper ribs.

“You got a tattoo,” she says. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Did she eat?”

“Yeah, I’ve done all the hard work. Now all you have to do is put her to sleep for the night.”

“Because that’s the easiest thing that’s ever been done,” I says, rolling my eyes. “She likes to be fed in the middle of the night, too.”

“Discover that, did you?” she grins.

“I did. It was a wonderful two a.m. diaper change. I learned so much.”

“Get out of my room,” she snorts, poking me in the general location of my new tattoo. “And don’t take Adele into the studio; the noise upsets her.”

***

Az in on her bed, tying new laces into her boots, when Adele and I get there. She eyes us both suspiciously, and tells me to leave the door open.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because it’s hot as hell in here,” she says.

“Are you kidding? I’m so cold I can’t feel my toes.”

“You can put more socks on,” she says, going back to her shoes. “I can only get so naked.”

“If the baby starts shivering, I’m closing the door.”

“Fair.”

We spend the next few minutes in silence. I change Adele out of her Dauntless shirt and combat booties, and into a more comfortable sleep onesie. When I have her settled on the bed, surrounded by pillows and covered with a thin blanket, I go about changing into my own sleep clothes, a long sleeved shirt with a wide collar and a pair of sweatpants. When my shirt comes off, I can barely catch the edge of fresh black ink on my ribs, before I drop my clean shirt down so Az can’t see; I want the tattoo to be just mine and Tobias’s for a little while longer.

“You care if I read to her?” I ask Az.

She shakes her head in the negative, so I scoop up both the baby and my book, and start to pace the room.

“All in green went my love riding/ on a great horse of gold/ into the silver dawn.// four lean hounds/ crouched low and smiling/ the merry deer ran before.// Fleeter be they than dappled dreams/ the swift sweet deer/ the red rare deer.// Horn at hip went my love riding/ riding the echo down/into the silver dawn.// four lean hounds crouched low and smiling/ the level meadows ran before.”

“What are you reading?” Az asks when I take a breath.

“It’s my mother’s book,” I say quietly. “She used to read it to me before I went to bed before she…”

“Keep going,” she says, and turns back to her boots.

“Softer be they than slippered sleep/ the lean lithe deer/ the fleet flown deer.// Four fleet does at a gold valley/ the famished arrows sang before.// Bow at belt went my love riding/ riding the mountain down into the silver dawn.// four lean hounds crouched low and smiling/ the sheer peaks ran before.// Paler be they than daunting death/ the sleek slim deer/ the tall tense deer.// Four tall stags at a green mountain/ the lucky hunter sang before.// All in green went my love riding/ on a great horse of gold/ into the silver dawn.// four….”

I glance at Az, who is staring passed me through the door. Several people are standing in the doorway, Connor, Harper, and Eric among them; I don’t know the rest.

“Finish,” Az whispers.

“four lean hounds crouched low and smiling/ my heart fell dead before.”

“Alright, she’s done,” Az says firmly, “and the baby’s sleeping, so clear out.”

The people I don’t know the names of shuffle away, but Eric, Connor, and Harper stay. Connor and Harper slip into our room and make themselves comfortable on Az’s bed, and Eric leans in the doorway. The other three keep looking at him expectantly.

“Max wants to see you in the morning,” he says quietly.

“Alright. I’ll be there.”

Harper clears his throat.

“Another?” he asks.

I nod slowly and turn the page.

“this is the garden:colours come and go,/ frail azures fluttering from night’s outer wing/ strong silent greens silently lingering,/ absolute lights like baths of golden snow./ This is the garden:pursed lips do blow/ upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing/ (of harps celestial to the quivering string)/ invisible faces hauntingly and slow.// This is the garden. Time shall surely reap/ and on Death’s blade lie many a flower curled,/ in other lands where other songs be sung;/ yet stand They here enraptured,as among/ the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep/ some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.”

***

The next morning I knock on Max’s office door and adjust Adele’s weight on my hip as he calls for me to enter. It’s the same as it was a few days previous, warm and comfortable, and a little bit bleak, like the atmosphere is to convince visitors that it’s a safe place to relax. I sink into the chair across from Max’s desk and turn Adele so she can see the rest of the room.

“How have your last few days been?” he asks.

“A little hectic,” I admit,” but nothing that isn’t normal when you have a baby.”

“I trust Adele is doing alright?”

“She’d be doing better if she’d learn to sleep through the night.”

“Have you considered taking the patrol position?” he asks, jumping topics.

“Yes.”

“And have you come to a decision?”

I hesitate, take a deep breath. I don’t really want to take the patrol position, but I also don’t want to leave a gap in whatever defense Dauntless may have to mount this winter. I’m better with babies than I am with a gun, but practice and routine would make me better. And maybe when the winter is over, we won’t have a need for as many patrolmen, and I can take up a position with the babies again; Max did say that the schedule is evaluated every six months.

“I’ll do it,” I say quietly.

“Good to hear. I’ll have you placed into next week’s rotation and someone will pass on the details.”

***

“I told Max I’d take one of the patrol rotations,” I tell my brother at dinner.

“Why?” he asks, stealing the chocolate cake from my tray.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess I just need a change, maybe?”

“A change from what? It’s been a month since initiation ended.”

“Exactly. Everything in initiation was competition, and surviving so you didn’t end up factionless, and now that I’ve made it, I feel like nothing’s happening. I just…I don’t feel like I have a place.”

“Are you settling in okay?”

“Yeah, that’s not…Az is a great roommate, but we’ve only known each other for a few months, and sometimes I don’t know what to do with her, you know? And I’m sleeping all the time, and I’m always tired, but, I just…it’s not…”

“It’s not Abnegation,” my brother says quietly. “It’s not a still quiet; everything here is always moving and it can be…upsetting. It makes it hard to sleep and even harder to do something about it.”

“Yeah. Exactly like that. How did…how did you adjust?”

“I didn’t,” he tells me, “not at first. I was just so relieved to have somewhere to sleep where Marcus couldn’t get me that the noise never bothered me. And then, after initiation was over, and I knew I wasn’t going back, the nightmares started again, the restless nights, napping at odd hours. It happens to more transfers than you’d think.

“You won’t really settle in until you decide that Dauntless is where you want to be, that this is who you are now. You’ll never go back to Abnegation, not of your will or anyone else’s. Marcus will never be here. So you have to pick: are you Dauntless, or are you still stuck in Abnegation?”

***

I’m wandering the tunnels after most everyone else has headed to bed, just walking, trying to tire myself out into at least a few hours of sleep. Adele is in my room, sound asleep surrounded by a nest of pillows on my bed; I haven’t seen Az since dinner, and I’m reluctant to leave the baby alone, but Adele slept the last night through, so I have wavering confidence that she’ll do so again. I promise myself I won’t go far, and I leave the door open.

The lanterns on the walls have been turned down low, and are just dim enough to see by. It makes for drowsy wandering. Most of the walls still look the same, but I’m learning my way around, enough that I can tell which way leads deeper into the compound, and which leads out towards the Pit. All of the doors I pass by are closed, and I have to assume that when they aren’t partying, most Dauntless like their sleep, so I stay quiet.

Just like I promise myself, I’m not gone long. I circle the small section on the compound where mine and Az’s room is a few times and head back. When I get to my room, both Connor and Jack are sitting on Az’s bed, watching Adele sleep. I stop in my door way and stare at them until Connor shrugs and says,

“Sorry?” like it’s a question.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Um, well,” Connor says, “We share a room with Harper, and, well…”

“He and Az are having sex, okay?” Jack blurts. “We’ve been sexiled. We didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Connor looks as embarrassed as a human being could possibly be, but Jack just looks agitated at being evicted from his room.

“So you came here?” I ask. “Not that I mind, but…there isn’t exactly a bed for everyone.”

“Not our choice,” Jack says. “Connor and I can share.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind,” the other boy says.

I sigh and rub my hands over my face, before I squat by the end of my bed and start packing some of mine and Adele’s things away in her baby bag.

“What are you doing?” Jack asks.

“I have a place I can stay,” I say, thinking quickly. “One of you can use my bed.”

“What? No,” Connor says. “We don’t want to drive you out. Jack and I can share.”

“It’s not a problem,” I tell them both. “I’ll crash on my brother’s couch, and you guys can go back to your room in the morning.”

“Suits me,” Jack says, spreading out on Az’s bed and pushing Connor off.

Connor looks embarrassed that he’s taking my space, but I don’t truly mind; Az and Harper kicked them out, and I have a place to go. Maybe this way everyone else gets a good night’s sleep. Once my bag is packed, I order both boys to turn so I can change into my sleep clothes. Connor turns his back willingly, but Jack just rolls over and buries his head into Az’s pillow, which is the best I can expect. After I’ve got my clothes back on, I slip Adele’s sling over my shoulder and gently move her from the mattress to my chest, hoping she doesn’t wake. I gather the bag, and wish the boys a good night. As I pull the door closed behind me, I hear Connor ask,

“Did you know she had a brother?”

***

Adele and I make the trek to the upper apartments as quietly as we can, and it doesn’t take us long. I knock quietly on the heavy wooden door and hope that it’s loud enough to announce our presence without waking the neighbors. Eric pulls the door open, shirtless and already sleep touched, and I feel bad for waking him up.

“Olivia?”

“Sorry,” I say. “Can I borrow your couch again?”

He opens the door wider and I slip under his arm. His sheets are flipped back like he’d climbed out of bed to answer the door, and only bothered to turn the lamp behind the couch on.

“I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“Is Az drunk again?”

“No,” I sigh. “Az is in Harper’s room. They’re having, er, personal time. Harper’s roommates are in my room. I can go find my brother if…”

Eric shakes his head, whether to clear his head or disregard my suggestion, I don’t know.

“You can stay,” he says. “I wouldn’t have brought you here the last time if I wasn’t okay with it.”

I nod slowly and set my bag on the floor next to the couch again. Eric shuffles over to his bed and grabs a pillow off of the mattress.

“No,” I say firmly. He looks up at me. “I took the bed last time. I won’t take it again.”

“There isn’t enough room on the couch for you and Adele.”

“I have enough blankets to make her a bed on the floor. We’ll be fine.”

He opens his mouth to protest again, but closes it with a click of his teeth, and sighs, “Fine.”

He crawls back on his mattress, and I make a little nest for Adele, checking that I brought enough blankets to keep her warm in Eric’s apartment. I settle onto the couch and reach behind me to flip the lamp off. I hear Eric shuffle in the darkness before he drops a heavy blanket and a pillow on my head. I tuck the blanket around me, nestle in, and extend a hand to soothe Adele back to sleep.

“She might like it if you read to her again,” Eric whispers from the other side of the room.

“You think,” I say.

“Maybe.”

“Spring is like a perhaps hand/ (which comes carefully/ out of Nowhere)arranging/ a window,into which people look(while/ people stare/ arranging and changing placing/ carefully there a strange/ thing and a known thing here)and// changing everything carefully// spring is like a perhaps/ Hand in a window/ (carefully to/ and from moving New and/ Old things,while/ people stare carefully/ moving a perhaps/ fraction of flower here placing/ an inch of air there)and// without breaking anything.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> 1\. "If freckles were lovely" by E. E. Cummings.
> 
> 2\. "All in green went my love riding" by E. E. Cummings.
> 
> 3\. "this is the garden:colours come and go: by E. E. Cummings.
> 
> 4\. "Spring is like a perhaps hand" by E. E. Cummings.
> 
> 5\. One forward slash (/) indicates a line break in a poem. Two forward slashes (//) indicates a paragraph break in the poem.


	16. and now you are and i am and we're

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any sequence of ‘z’s is to be read as static, like snow on your television. It is a disruption in the signal.

_I’m in my grey kitchen in my grey Abnegation house, washing the grey dishes with grey scented soap. My clothes are grey, my hair is grey, my life is grey. zzZzz clean dishes to rinse and set them in the drying rack. I hear the door fly open and hit the opposite wall; the plate in my hands crashes to the floor and shatters. I know what’s zzZzz._

_zzZzz can’t breathe. I try to open my mouth, bring the air back into my lungs, something, but I just can’t. It’s dark, and hot, and when I feel a hand grab my wrist as I zzZzz this isn’t a dream. The hand over my face moves and I can finally breathe through my nose, but I can’t make a sound, can’t call for help, if any would even come. I don’t know who’s zzZzz me, but unless they have more than two hands, there are at least two of them._

_My father storms into the kitchen. zzZzz know why he’s angry, but the shards of ceramic scattered on the floor only set more kindle to the flame. I scamper to the broom closet, and reach for the broom and dustpan, but my father catches me by the wrist. He yanks me back, and I hear the bones in my hand pop, and he throws me to the floor. I hit my head. I sit up, dizzy._

_It starts like a quiet whisper in my ear, and grows louder like an enormous crowd cheering, more and more and more people chanting. I don’t realize where we’re headed until one zzzZZZZZZZZ on metal grating, and I hear it rock and sway under his weight. We’re headed for the chasm._

_He’s yelling, but I can’t understand him, can’t answer when he shouts a question. He picks up a drying glass and flings it at me. zzZzz misses, hits the floor, shatters. A piece hits me in the face, glances across, but still splits skin. He storms forward, still yelling, buzzing in my ear like a fly rapidly beating its wings. He grabs zzZzz dress, hauls me up, punches me once in the stomach. I can’t breathe._

_No one will think it’s murder. No one will care about the death of another initiate, especially a transfer. No one will think it’s murder. No one will care about the death of another initiate, especially a transfer. No one will think it’s murder. No one will think it’s murder. No one will think it’s murder. No one will think it’s murder. No one will think it’s murder._

_I scurry away, and zzZZ in my mouth out, intending to be able to bite whatever comes at me next.  zzZzz The two men that threw me over scramble away from the edge until one of them realizes that I haven’t fallen into the water. The friend growls and stalks towards me and begins to pry my fingers from the bar._

_“Yeah,” he says darkly. “I’ll handle them.”_

_“I’ll handle them.”_

“I’ll handle them.”

***

Waking up from nightmares has always been like taking the first of Marcus’s blows in the morning: terrifying. I sit up quickly, try to scramble away from what I think is Marcus, too close and too real, but a hand pulls me back. I kick out, hit something solid, scramble away. When I nearly tumble over the side of the mattress, I stop, lungs gasping for air and heart pounding in my throat. The tile on the floor is too dark to belong in Abnegation, but I’m not….I’m not….

I push my hair out of my face and look around. I’m not in Abnegation. _I’m_ not Abnegation. This is Dauntless. This is where I chose to be. This is…Eric’s apartment. I turn around, tucked up against the edge of the mattress and the wall. He’s sitting on the other side of the bed watching me. The wall is cold on my back and I can see my hands shaking. Eric is calm, still, just there.

“Olivia,” he says. “You with me?”

I nod and push my hair out of my face.

“W-what happened?” I ask.

“Nightmare,” he says quietly.

“I didn’t mean to….”

“I was already awake. You had another one earlier. I woke you up, but it didn’t seem to do much good.”

“It usually doesn’t.”

“Come here,” he says, but he doesn’t make a move towards me.

I scoot down the mattress until I’m closer to Eric than I am to the edge. He reaches out towards me, slowly like I’m some sort of frightened animal, and I guess I’m no better than. His hands are warm, warmer than I am at any rate, and so is the rest of him when he pulls me closer. I tuck into his side, shoulder wedged up under his arm and my ribs pressed along his, and realize that even though he’s still, I’m still trembling.

“You’re freezing,” he comments.

“I told you it was cold in here,” I say, jostling him with my elbow.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t.”

“Do you want to sleep?”

“I just…I just want to sit here.”

***

When I wake up later in the same morning, I’m lying on my side facing the rest of the room. I’m comfortable, warm. The sun is barely up, just filtering in the windows and touching the ceiling. Adele is still asleep in her nest of blankets; I haven’t heard her cry all night. I fidget a bit, try to sit up, but I’m halted by the thick arm thrown over my waist. I don’t even have to turn to see who’s on the bed with me because no one else in Dauntless has the same tattoos as Eric.

When I settle back down, I realize that his other arm is under my head, and that I’ve apparently been using him as a pillow. I can feel him breathing against my back, chest moving in sync with mine.

“Stop thinking so loud,” he mumbles. “Go back to sleep.”

“Why am I on the bed?” I ask quietly. It’s a thought that I’d had earlier, but, well, nothing knocks me for a loop like Marcus can.

“Almost fell of the couch. Didn’t want you to fall on Adele.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“What time is it?” he asks.

I look around for a moment, but there isn’t a clock on any wall I can see or an alarm on the nightstand.

“I don’t see a clock.”

I feel him shift, push himself up onto his elbow so he can look over me at the arm I’m lying on; there’s a watch on his wrist that I couldn’t see through my hair. It’s six thirty in the morning.

“Go back to sleep,” he says, wrapping his arm tighter around my waist and pulling me back towards him.

“You’re awfully comfortable back there,” I say dryly.

“I can move,” he says quietly, shifting back.

“I didn’t say I wanted you to,” I tell him honestly.

He hesitates, but, slowly, his arm moves back into place around me. I settle in, perfectly content in the warmth Eric provides. This isn’t as awkward as I could imagine it being; it’s nice, slow, comfortable. Adele is sleeping peacefully, and Eric is headed back that way, and I don’t have anywhere to be until early afternoon.

***

“Take the baby,” I tell Fanny sullenly.

It’s been a week of caring for Adele, and I don’t want to give her up, but today is the day that Liz, Adele’s mother, is supposed to be in from the wall. I packed up all her things after leaving Eric’s apartment that morning, and fed her one last meal before coming to drop her off in the infant room. She seems happy to see Fanny, and even happier to have her old toys to play with.

“Go on,” Fanny says after I return all of Adele’s stuff. “You’ve had a baby for a week. Take some time to relax, you’re patrols start in a few days.”

“Why do you know that?” I ask.

“Because I know everything,” she teases, and closes the door in my face. Again.

***

Harper, Jack, and Connor are at a table in the commissary when I head down for lunch. They all seem to be deep in discussion about something, but when I drop my tray on the table in front of Harper, they all quiet and look up at me.

“Good morning, Olivia dear, did you have a nice night?” Harper asks.

“I spent the night on a couch because you and Az decided to learn how to tango, and there weren’t enough beds in my room,” I say severely.

“About that,” Jack says. “Who’s couch did you spend the night on? Because I could have sworn you said it was your brother’s.”

“It was.”

“You have a brother in Dauntless?” Connor asks. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Because it isn’t important.”

“Who is it?” Harper stresses.

“Don’t kick me,” I scold when the toe of his boot bangs into my shin. “It doesn’t matter!”

“Is it someone we know?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say around my spoon.

“Is he on the wall?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Is he one of the leaders?”

“ _Still_ doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does!” Harper insists.

“Why?” I demand. “If he was someone important, how does that affect you at all? Do you think that’s why I passed initiation? Or are you just bugging the shit out of me for no reason?”

Pleasant morning aside, I think my nightmares are starting to affect my mood.

“What? No! Why would I think that?”

“You tell me, Harper.”

“I’m just…I was just trying to give you a hard time, Olivia,” he says. “You passed initiation because you’re the best.”

“You kicked my ass pretty well,” Connor says.

“And you had the highest Landscape scores,” Harper says. “You can’t fake that, especially not in front of a panel of judges.”

“Sorry,” I say quietly, picking at my food. “I just….haven’t been sleeping well. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and we all go back to our food quietly.

When I reach the bottom of my pudding bowl, I stare into the bottom of it for several minutes and make a decision.

“It’s Four,” I say.

“What?” Harper asks, looking around. “Where?”

“No. My brother, it’s Four.”

“But you punched him in the face,” Jack says slowly.

“That’s how we greet each other,” I say dryly.

“You’re so weird,” Harper says, and that’s the end of the conversation.

***

“Your patrol starts in three days,” Tobias says when I slip into the control room.

“Why does everyone keep reminding me?” I ask.

He shrugs, eyes and concentration never leaving the screens in front of him. I hunker down on the arm of his chair and pull my knees up to my chest. The screens flicker between camera views and I wonder how much my brother really gets to see.

“I slept in Eric’s room last night,” I confess quietly.

“I know.”

“And I don – What?”

“I know,” he says again.

“How?” I ask. “I haven’t told anyone.”

“Eric told me,” he says simply.

“What the hell do you mean ‘ _Eric told you’_? Who else has he told?”

“Calm down,” Tobias orders, placing a hand on my leg.

“I am calm,” I growl.

“Try again.”

The back of my mouth tastes like embarrassment. I’d slept in Eric’s room twice now, both time in his bed, and once with him there with me. I had felt confident enough that he could keep it to himself, _would_ keep it to himself considering its no one else’s business. And if he’s been telling people that I’ve been sleeping in his room, does that mean he’s mentioned my nightmares? The last thing I want is everyone in Dauntless thinking I’m a coward because of the fear Marcus still strikes in me. Last night had been two of them, and they’re never quiet. Tobias says I lash out, clawing and kicking and yelling. I wonder if I yelled last night.

“Eric cornered me in here at the beginning of my shift,” my brother tells me. “Told me that you had spent the night in his apartment. He has a bruise on his hip, by the way, from where you kicked him in your sleep.”

“So?”

“He wanted me to know that he didn’t have any ill intentions towards my sister, and that he’d respect my objections if I had any, he probably wouldn’t listen, but he’d respect them.”

“He did not say the phrase ‘ill intentions,” I say quietly.

“It’s what he meant,” Tobias shrugs. “I surprised he said anything to me to begin with.”

We’re both quiet for a long time, watching the monitors flicker back and forth, watching the compound and every member of Dauntless walking its halls.

“So,” I say, “do you have any objections?”

“Objections to what?”

***

“You’re an idiot,” I say when Eric opens his door.

“What?” he asks, but I ignore him.

I plant my hand on his chest and move him backwards until I can close the door behind me with my foot. I’d like to think I look foreboding, standing with my hands on my hips and a frown on my face, but Four does the same thing and he’s only managed to look like a mother hen.

“My brother said you talked to him this morning,” I say simply, and the frown on Eric’s face becomes a grimace. “Want to tell me what the discussion was about?”

He opens his mouth.

“Think very carefully about the fact that my brother is the only family I have left, and that he tells me everything.”

“I did talk to him this morning,” he admits.

“About?” I prompt when he doesn’t seem like he’s going any further.

“You.”

“What about me?” I growl.

“About you sleeping here, your nightmares. If there was anything I could do to help them.”

I blink, stunned a little bit; Tobias hadn’t told me that part.

“You can’t,” I huff. “There’s not anything that can stop them. They come and I deal with it.”

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”

Eric says it lowly, like it’s a secret that he’s never told anyone before. I have to remind myself that as depressing as the admission is, it isn’t the point of the conversation right now.

“Anything else?” I ask.

I can see his jaw clench from where I’m standing, can practically hear his teeth grinding; he’s not going to tell me.

“Let me tell you then,” I say. “You talked to my brother this morning about me sleeping in your bed. You wanted him to know that you have no “ill intention” towards me, that you would respect his objections if he had any.

“Here’s my question: if your intentions aren’t ill, what are they?”

“You drive me crazy,” he growls, frown dipping into a scowl. “You’re always around, always in my space. I can’t go two minutes without someone commenting on something you’ve done, about how remarkable you are, about how you have such promise. First jumper, first in your class, Abnegation to top it all off; _they never shut up_. They talk and they talk, and I _agree_ with them. You’re amazing, and you’re smart, and too damn oblivious for your own good, and you’re still so goddamn selfless. You nearly got thrown over the fucking chasm, and you walked out of the infirmary like it was nothing. You face your fears like they’re nothing, like your brain just threw something into the simulation because nothing has an effect on you.

“You’re gorgeous, and I don’t like the way Connor looks at you, and I’d keep you in my space if I could, just you and me, and nobody else. You’re brave like everyone wants to be, and it comes so naturally to you, and there isn’t a bone in me that doesn’t ache when I think about how you smiled at me this morning when you got out of bed, and I want to keep that. I want to….I want to kiss you, and hold you through your nightmares, and tell you that Marcus is never going to lay a hand on you again.”

“So do it,” I tell him faintly.

“What?”

“Kiss me,” I say simply. “You said you wanted to, and I can’t think of a reason why I wouldn’t want you to, so do it.”

Eric’s eyes light up like it’s never occurred to him to be so simple. His first few footsteps are hesitant, watching me, making sure I’m not bluffing, but once he has one foot in front of the other, there’s no stopping him until my back is pressed firmly against the door, and he’s pressed firmly against me. He ducks his head, hesitates again, more shy than I’ve ever seen him be. I put my hand on the back of his head, thread my fingers through the shorts hairs on his neck, and pull him down; he’s not the only one who wants to be kissed.

His lips are dry, chapped like he bites at them when he’s not thinking. He’s just as warm as he was last night, and the difference between his temperature and the temperature of his apartment makes my skin breakout in gooseflesh. It isn’t magical, like I’ve heard some girls describe before; there are no fireworks, or butterflies in my stomach, or declarations of eternal love and devotion running through my head. Eric feels real.

He kisses me several times, slow like he means it, like he may never get the chance again. Something warm uncurls in my chest, bright and shiny like the sun, and it takes me a moment to realize that kissing Eric gives me the same feeling as getting a tattoo; that dull ache sets down in my bones and stretches out like a house cat and I feel like he’s branding himself on my skin, like I’ll walk through the compound and everyone will know what we’ve been doing, that, even if it’s just for this one moment, I belong to Eric and he belongs to me.

“You are so fucking infuriating,” I whisper when he pulls away. “And I didn’t tell you to stop kissing me, did I? Get back down here.”

A grin curves the corners of his lips and he ducks back down, kisses me again.


	17. to sleep upon the world

“I have to get up,” I whisper into Eric’s neck.

“No you don’t,” he says, curling his arms tighter around me.

“I told my brother I’d have breakfast with him before I left.”

“Don’t go.”

“He’s my brother,” I say. “I’ve spent the last two days with you.”

He kisses the top of my head, but doesn’t let go.

“Eric,” I try to say sternly, “I have to report for patrol in two hours. I want a shower and food before I leave.”

He hums and ducks his head, placing kisses on my cheek, my jaw, my neck. When he reaches the hollow space between my collarbones, he pauses, waits. I scratch my nails through the short hair on the back of his head, and he hums again. I feel his hands slip under the edge of my shirt, feel his fingers run over my stomach, my ribs. I shudder.

“Too much?” he asks, and I nod.

He pulls his hands out from under my shirt, and smoothes the fabric back down my stomach.

“Better get going,” he says begrudgingly, kissing me one last time on the mouth and drawing his hands away like it hurts him to do so.

“I’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow,” I tell him sliding off his bed. “Try to be up at a decent hour?”

“Six am is not a decent hour!” he calls after me as I slip out of his apartment.

***

I shower and change into the standard patrol uniform I was given when Max assigned me to a patrol group: a plain, sturdy, black jacket with the Dauntless insignia printed on the back in red, and black pants, each garment padded at the elbows and knees. I braid my hair back and let it fall to my waist. I lace my boots up to my knees, and head out for breakfast.

The commissary is full, but not noisy as early in the day as it is. Several groups huddle around tables together wearing the same uniform I am, but underneath their Dauntless emblems numbered patches have been sewn on. Each group has its own number, and they don’t seem to intermingle. I slip through the line and fill my tray with fruit and grab a bottle of milk before searching the room for Tobias. He’s in a corner by himself, picking at a stack on pancakes that he doesn’t seem too keen on eating.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask as I sit across from him.

“Just tired,” he says, inching his tray away. “You ready for your first patrol?”

“I guess,” I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You’ll be fine. Nothing really happens on the patrols; they’re just a show for the factionless.”

“What are the numbers on their uniforms for?”

“They’re squadron numbers. Each squadron is ten Dauntless, nine grunts and a commander, and each patrol has ten squadrons. Each patrol has a Captain, and each of the commanders rotates through the position randomly so no one can get too comfortable with the position.”

“That’s one hundred Dauntless,” I say. “And they just mill around?”

“Each squadron is assigned a route, usually between eight and fifteen city blocks, depending on how dense the population of factionless is in the area.”

“It seems pointless,” I mutter into the lip of my milk bottle.

“It’s a show,” he says again. “Dauntless patrols keep the peace, Erudite shuts the hell up, and Amity feels like there might be a real reason that we should exist. It isn’t a prefect system, but it works.”

“You designed it, didn’t you,” I say, but it isn’t a question; the efficiency of the entire structure has my brother’s name painted all over it.

“Yeah.”

***

There are eight new patrolees when we gather at the south end of the compound, eight of us without the additional numbers. We crowd together, forming our own group as it seems that we’ve been excluded from everyone else’s. I’m surprised to find Connor amongst the unfamiliar faces. He smiles at me and I nod back, but my attention is quickly stolen by a man climbing a stack of crates and whistling for our attention. He’s tall, maybe even taller than Eric, and dark skinned. His eyes are a sharp blue that seem to catch everything as they scan the crowd. He’s wearing the same uniform as everyone else, but his sleeves have been rolled back like we aren’t on the verge of winter, and he has a gold star tacked to his collar.

“My name is Henley, and I am the Patrol Captain for the month. We have eight new patrolmen, and seven slots to fill, which means someone gets to go back to their old job. Do I have any volunteers?”

No one in the crowd raises their hand or speaks up. A look of satisfaction passes over Henley’s face, and I start to think that this may just be an assignment one gets shunned for wimping out of. The Captain pulls a sheet of paper out of his pocket and holds it up for the rest of us to see.

“Since no one is going to abandon their squadron, I guess we’ll have to improvise. I’ve got assignments right here, and if I hear anybody moaning and groaning that they don’t like their new squadmate, I’ll hang you from the rafters myself. Understood?”

A general noise of agreement rises up from everyone else.

“Good,” he says. “Getting on with it. Pierce, Justin: Squadron 289.”

Several hands reach out of the crown and pull an unsuspecting young man back into the crowd, jostling him and patting him on the back as someone forces his jacket from his shoulders. Henley and the rest of the crowd laughs, but it’s easy to tell that no one means any harm.

“Green, Connor: Squadron 212. Perch, Abel: Squadron 256. Condie, Marrilyn: Squadron 249. Shutter, Abram: Squadron 200.”

One by one everyone in our little misfit group gets pulled away to their new assignments until I’m left alone.

“Eaton, Olivia,” Henley calls, baring all his teeth in what barely resembles a grin, “You’re with me.”

 ***

“Give me your jacket, Eaton,” the only other woman in the group demands as soon as they’ve surrounded me.

I do as she says, slowly unzipping the front and sliding it down my arms, and say, “Don’t call me Eaton.”

“Got something else we can call you?” one of the other’s asks.

“Olivia works,” I say simply.

“Nah,” the woman says as she stitches a numbered patch onto my jacket. “It’s just so…”

“ _Olivia_ ,” one of the others finishes for her.

“I’m Tank,” the woman says. “This is Boomer, Creed, Slightly, the Duke, Gipsy, Bandit, Hash, and Crater. You know Henley.”

Tank thrusts my jacket back at me, patch neatly placed under the Dauntless symbol, and I stuff myself back into it as quickly as I can to fend off the chill.

“Layers are a good idea,” Tank suggests, “but too many will make you sweat.”

I nod.

“You’re Four’s sister,” one of the boys says, Bandit, I think.

“What does that matter?” I ask roughly, rolling my sleeves once so that the fabric doesn’t scrape against my wrists anymore.

“I’m just bringing up the inevitable,” he shrugs, and someone digs their elbow into his ribs.

“He’s being a dick, is what he’s doing,” Gipsy says, “Make no never mind.”

“You can ignore Gipsy, too,” Tank says, slinging her arm around my neck. “Now, let’s get you a rifle so we can get on with this long ass patrol.”

The others agree, and shuffle me off in the direction of the armory. The room that serves the rifle room for the patrols is large, as it would have to be to hold over four hundred gun lockers, and pretty vacant, though there is the lingering static in the air that suggests it hasn’t been for long. Tank stops me in front of a locker and taps her knuckles on the grate.

“This’ll be your locker. You’re responsible for the care and cleaning of your rifle, as well as your supplies. You’ll check it out in the morning, and back in at the end of our shift. It’s suggested you add an additional lock, just to be safe. Squadron rivalries can get kind of nasty.”

“Don’t spill gun oil on the floor,” Boomer adds.

“And no sex in the armory,” Bandit says.

“Don’t have sex with Bandit either,” Tank says.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” I say drily, thumbing the lock on my locker and pulling the grate open. The rifle sitting in the rack is a little different than what we were given in initiation, heavier, able to inflict more damage. “It seems pointless for us all to be carrying long-range firearms.”

“We’re not,” Tank says, opening her own locker and showing me what’s inside. “Henley liked your initiation scores in the range, so he opted to have you on the Bus with Slightly and the Duke. Slightly is our long-range; Duke drives.”

“What’s the Bus?” I ask.

***

The Bus, as it turns out, is exactly that: a bus. It’s been painted black with the Dauntless symbol on both sides in bright red. Armored plates have been added to the side panels and front bumper, and a spotlight has been mounted on the back end.

“Beautiful, ain’t she?” Tank asks.

“She looks like over kill,” I say. “I thought this was just a show. Let the factionless know we’re here, keep them from going after Amity when they think food is running low.”

“Five years ago,” Henley’s voice says from the other side of the bus. He comes around carrying a crate of old clothing, “the factionless rioted because the food stores were low. They attacked Amity, and destroyed a fraction of their orchards.”

“It was a rumor,” Tank says. “Just a rumor, but ever since, we’ve had to keep an eye on them because of it. There are too many of them to let run wild.”

“It’s a pretty easy job,” Henley says. “Make your rounds, break up a few fights, and keep the peace. But if they do riot again, we’re the first responders. That’s what the Bus is for.”

“It’s because we’re the best,” Bandit says.

“Well,” Henley says, shit eating grin aimed at the other man, “most of us.”

***

Three of us stay on the Bus, Slightly, the Duke, and me; everyone else takes an assigned position around the Bus. Henley and Tank are at the front, Boomer and Creed on the right, Gipsy and Crater on the left, and Bandit and Hash bringing up the rear. And oval has been cut out of the roof of the Bus, and two rungs have been welded at each end so that Slightly and I can stand on them, leaning on the roof with our rifles in our arms.

“So what are we calling the new girl?” Henley asks loudly once we’re well underway.

“Don’t know yet,” Boomer calls. “Haven’t picked.”

“Olivia works just fine,” I say over the low rumbling of the Bus’s engine; besides us making noise, there aren’t many people out and about yet.

“Nah,” Henley says, “It’s just so…”

“ _Olivia_. I know,” I say with the same inflection Creed had.

“We’ll think of something,” Tank promises.

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

***

Our twelve hour shift ends at 8 p.m. We park the Bus, stow our rifles, and usher each other into the commissary. There are still other Dauntless coming and going, and throwing in another hundred of us just adds to the chaos. I don’t see my brother anywhere when I look for him, but that doesn’t alarm me; Tobias has always kept a pretty odd schedule. Az and Harper are both hunched over their own plates, practically in each other’s laps, but they do notice our entrance and look up long enough to smile and wave at me.

“Sit with us,” Gipsy says, bumping me with his tray and nudging me in another direction.

I nod, and leave Az and Harper to is, and take a seat when Tank drags me down. The other woman takes one look at my tray and immediately transfers one of her hamburgers onto my plate. I slide it back onto hers.

“You have to eat something,” she insists.

“I can’t eat it.”

“You have to eat _something_.”

“I haven’t been able to stomach meat since I was little. It makes me ill.”

“So eat the bun.”

“I’m allergic.”

“You are full of so much bullshit,” she says.

“If you make me eat that and I spend the next three days puking my guts up, I’m making sure some of it goes in your boots,” I say, scooting my tray away from her.

Tank narrows her eyes and turns away, so I slip my piece of chocolate cake onto her tray when she isn’t looking.

Half way through picking my pineapple to pieces and arguing with Gipsy and Bandit over whether or not I should have a nickname, our table quiets down a little. Four drops down into the seat next to me, close enough to press our shoulders together, and after a moment I realize why. I follow my brother’s gaze and watch as Max, then Eric, then Marcus crosses one of the cat walks a few stories above the commissary. The rest of the room doesn’t pause, doesn’t care about who’s walking above them, doesn’t hold their breath until they’re safe again.

“Why is he here?” I ask after the three of them are gone.

“Political grandstanding,” Tobias says. “Marcus wants to strengthen the bond between Abnegation and Dauntless by working together more closely.”

I don’t answer, just tear into my pineapple more viciously.

“Yeah,” Tobias agrees. “I feel the same way.”

***

Az isn’t in our room when I finally split from my brother and my new squadron and decide that I want a shower. I grab my night clothes, and my tooth brush, and my soap and head off to the bathroom down the hall. No one else is in there, so I’m left to shower and relax alone. Once I don’t feel so gross, and my hair is clean and pulled back, I slip into my night clothes and leave my dirty clothes in my room.

I don’t bother with shoes as I walk the tunnels, my toes enjoying the freedom after being shoved into my boots for twelve plus hours today, and the chill feels good in my muscles. No one’s really around for me to talk to, so I make my way to Eric’s apartment in silence. No one answers when I knock, but the knob turns easily, so I let myself in and close the door behind me.

***

It’s the cold that wakes me up.

“Your hands are fucking cold,” I hiss as I scoot away from Eric’s hands.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, but pulls me closer anyway, folding me into his arms and disturbing the nest of blankets and pillows I had made. His hair is wet, and the collar of his shirt is still damp, and he smells like soap. I cross my arms and wiggle in as closely as I can; it’s become pretty obvious that the reason Eric’s apartment is so cold is because he’d overheat otherwise.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Almost midnight,” he whispers. “I’m sorry about Marcus. I didn’t know he’d be here so long. I would have warned you.”

“Four was there,” I say. “Marcus didn’t even look at us, but, I just…”

“How was patrol?” he asks.

I sigh, grateful for the subject change.

“I liked it. It was different than I thought it was going to be.”

“Which squadron?”

“209.”

Eric sighs and sags into me.

“Bad?” I ask.

“Good,” he says. “Henley’s one of the good ones. I was afraid you’d get stuck with 212 or 250.”

“Tank says he liked my initiation scores.”

He snorts.

“They give you a new name yet?”

“Not yet. Gipsy says he’ll have one by the end of the week.”

“They’re ridiculous,” he says.

I hum and kiss the underside of his jaw, ready to fall back to sleep.

“ _You’re_ ridiculous.”

He pulls me closer still and kisses the top of my head.

“I think I’ll keep you anyway.”


	18. one pierced moment whiter than the rest

When the factionless fight, they fight dirty. Boomer and I are back to back, making our way through the waves of factionless fighting, essentially, over who gets to sleep where. Henley, Gipsy, and Tank are making their way towards us, shoving people apart and forcing them to consider whether or not they want to tangle with Dauntless. Bandit is hoisting two children out of the fray and onto a rusted fire escape attached to the side of the building. Slightly is with the Duke on the bus, slowly picking apart the crowd with special paint rounds designed to discourage fighting, but not to permanently damage.

We’ve exchanged our guns for heavy duty shields and protective gauntlets; Boomer showed me how cuff factionless out of the way without leaving anything more than a minor bruise. A man shoves a woman in my direction and I catch her, stumble back into Boomer, and twist her out of the way before the man can hit her again. He throws his fist at my shield, and yowls when his bones give way instead of the metal. I butt him in the face with my shield, and hear his nose crunch under the metal sheet.

It takes another half an hour for back up to arrive, and by the time the factionless realize that they’re out numbered and out skilled, those of us in 209 are exhausted. For his last order as Patrol Captain for the month, Henley instructs three other squadrons to split up and cover the rest of our route so that we can head in to dinner early. They gripe and complain, but Henley threatens to add a punishment detail on top of that, and they quiet down. We head back to the locker room, each of us content with the silence, and stow our gear.

Dinner that night is the first I’ve had with my brother in a week, and, after two months of patrols, I’ve learned to appreciate what time I can get. I sit down by Tank at the table 209 usually occupies, and he doesn’t hesitate before joining us. He sits across from me, and exchanges the cake on my plate for the pudding on his without asking. Bandit, Hash, and Slightly are all mostly asleep in their food, but Tank and I seem to still be coming down from the adrenalin rush despite the beating we both took.

Half way through our meal, Tobias looks up and nods at someone behind me, and Eric sinks into the seat on my left before anyone can protest. He presses his arm into mine, a long line of heat that feels good after spending hours in the cold and fighting my way through several dozen people. I must show some sign of discomfort though, because he gingerly takes my wrist and pushes my cuff back to expose two wide, band-like bruises where my shield’s straps had sat on my arm.

“How’s the other guy look?” he asks.

“Worse,” I assure.

Twenty minutes later, Eric and I stand from the table and say our goodbyes to my brother and my squad mates. I kiss Tobias on the head as I pass him, and he flinches away, which prompts me to wrap my arms around his neck and pepper him with more. He scowls and curses at me, but he doesn’t try to get away.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” I tell him, and rejoin Eric on the route to his apartment.

He doesn’t let me stop at my room, just insists that we continue on to his, and I would protest if I hadn’t been so tired and sore. His apartment is just as cool as it usually is, but through my uniform and the layers under it, I’m pretty content. I drop down onto the couch, intent on getting my boots off, but when I try to pick at the laces, my fingers stumble, too weary to undo the strings. Eric kneels down in front of me, batting my hands away, and undoing the laces himself. I groan when he slip one boot off, and enjoy the wiggle of my toes when he works on the other one.

“Did you fasten these with rubber cement?” he grumbles.

“Tank showed me how to double knot them so they wouldn’t come undone in the middle of patrol.”

He pulls my other boot off, and drops it on the floor by the end of the couch, but before he can stand up, I lean forward, put both hands on his face, and kiss him. Kissing Eric is.... in the beginning, there was a thrill, that heart pounding thought of what people would say if they knew, me being so fresh out of initiation, but no one has seemed to care over the last four months, so neither do we. Kissing Eric is warm, and, while the thrill of _danger_ no longer lingers, there is still a thrill of this being ours, just ours. Eric is my safe place, and, sometimes, I like to think that I am his.

"Bed?" he asks, kissing me again.

"Shower first."

"Together?" he asks hopefully.

"Not a chance," I say, kissing him to soften the rejection.

"Maybe next time," he says wistfully.

I sigh through my nose, but let him kiss me again.

"I'm joking," he says, kissing me on the cheek and hauling me back to my feet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it."

"I know."

"We talked about it. You're not comfortable with it. I'll shut up."

I have to reach up to bring him down to my level. I kiss him firmly on the mouth and let the feeling of his lips linger on mine.

"You're my favorite, you know that?" I ask.

"I better be," he grins.

***

When I climb out of the shower, a pair of my sleep pants and one of Eric's shirts are waiting for me. I dry my hair as best I can, and climb into the clothes, glad to be in anything more comfortable than my uniform.  I catch a shock of purple out of the corner of my eye, and discover that my left cheek and the side of my neck are mottled with bruises. Along with the bruises on my arms, knuckles, and the ones that I’d found in the shower, I imagine I must be one hell of a sight.

Eric’s already in bed when I open the bathroom door, sheets pulled over his knees. The room is dark, but he’s flipped a small lamp on and has a book sitting on his knee. I pull myself up onto the mattress and crawl up the bed, moving Eric around until I can pillow my head on his hip and tuck my feet under his calves. He lays his free hand on my shoulder, thumb working over the fabric of my shirt in an unconscious movement.

“What are we reading tonight?” I ask.

“The Old Man and the Sea,” he says.

“Again?” I ask lightly. “That makes three times this week.”

He hums, eyes moving across the page.

On a night when the nightmares had woken us both up, Eric had told me about growing up in Erudite. He’d always felt the pressure to measure up to all the other children, and had literally worried himself sick trying to make the grade. He’d had an older brother to live up to, and little sister that constantly showed him up, even when she didn’t mean to, and his parents had always made him feel inadequate. But one thing he seemed to have inherited was an insatiable desire to read; everything and anything Eric could get his hands on, he devoured. Old novels that had survived the war, technical manuals about how to repair diesel engines, articles about resolved farming problems Amity had conquered. During initiation, and for a little while afterwards, it would have been hard to convince me that Eric had grown up as anything other than Dauntless, daring, and brave, and confident; laying here, together, with no barriers or walls between us, books freely read and judgments ignored, I don’t know how I could have mistaken him for just any other Dauntless.

“You going to sleep?” he murmurs.

“On my way there,” I say, pulling the sheets up to my shoulders and settling in.

“Read to you?”

“Always,” I say, smile ruined by a yawn.

_“He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife. He only dreamed of places now and the lions on the beach. They played like young cats in the dusk and he loved them as he loved the boy. He never dreamed about the boy. He simply woke, looked out the open door at the moon and unrolled his trousers and put them on.”_

***

“Maybe you could avoid the potholes?” I ask loudly, shouting down at the Duke from my position on the Bus.

“Do you want to drive?” he yells back.

“I might like her driving better!” Slightly yells.

“Screw you both!”

The Duke pulls the bus around, slowly enough that the factionless have the chance to move, but not so slowly that they aren’t afraid of getting hit. Slightly and I continue to fire paint rounds into the crowd, starting from the edges and working our way in. Henley and Hash are working their way through to the worst section of fighting. Bandit is on his way to join them, one of the factionless already pulling the children present out of the fray. I watch the man stumble into someone else, who swings around like they’re going to hit him, never mind the child in his arms. I don’t feel bad about splattering neon blue paint across the attacker’s face.

***

“The fights keep getting worse,” Tanks mutters as we clear the rest of the factionless from the area.

“So do the rumors,” Henley says.

“Rumors about what?” Gipsy asks.

“Low food stores, dissatisfaction with the government, that sort of thing. Just fools trying to keep the winter chill off by stirring up trouble.”

“Hey,” a voice calls, “you foot grunts want to help me get the children down?”

It’s the man that was lifting the children out of the fight. He’s pushed all three of them up onto the hood of a dilapidated fire truck, broken down and stripped of what good parts were left years ago. There are two boys and a girl, and the boys look similar enough to be twins, never mind brothers. The man grabs the girl under her arms and slides her down the hood and into Bandit’s arms. She laughs as if the hood was a slide and we were just playing games.

“So how much trouble have you been getting into without me, Harold?”

“Not enough, Starshine,” he says, pushing the boys next, and then joining them on the ground.

Hugging Harold for the first time in months is like coming back to a home I didn’t know I was missing.

“Told you you were brave,” he says.

“Yeah, you did,” I say warmly. “How’ve you been, Old Earth?”

“A little cold, a little hungry; not that different.”

I frown a little, and it pulls on the bruises on my face.

“Wipe that look off your face,” he says, “and don’t worry about me. You are exactly where you should be.”

“Starshine,” Tank says from beside me, startling me. “I like it. Are you going to introduce us?”

“Harold, this is Tank. Tank this is Harold.”

Tank holds out her hand, and Harold takes it, shaking firmly, if not a little suspiciously.

“How do you know our Starshine here?” Tank asks, winking at me.

“Harold is,” I smile fondly, “Harold is as close to a father as I’ll ever have.”

Under the scraggly beard and dull green scarf, I can see Harold’s face start to turn red.

“Makes him family, yeah?” Tank says.

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go, you two!” Henley shouts from the Bus. Everyone is back in their positions, steadily watching us and wanting to get back on patrol.

“Will you meet me here tomorrow?” I ask Harold. “Same time?”

“To see your pretty face again? You got it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“Goodnight, Starshine. The earth says goodbye.”

“We’ll wait another day for you to come by.”

***

“Everybody,” Tank says when I climb back into my position on the top of the Bus, “this is Starshine.”

Bandit yips and starts laughing. I let out a string of curses that amuse those that can hear me.

“Starshine,” Henley says. “It suits you.”

***

The rest of 209 haven’t made it to the commissary by the time I’ve showered and changed, but Eric is sitting in the corner with my brother. It’s odd to see them together. I grab what little food I’m interested in and head over to them both, kissing each of them on the head before sitting down. They both push a bowl of banana pudding in my direction.

“That’s sweet, but I still only have one piece of cake.”

Eric shrugs and steals a piece of pineapple off my plate.

“How was your day?” he asks.

“Rough,” I say. “The fighting’s getting worse the longer this winter holds out.”

“Erudite’s predicted at least another three weeks before we see any real improvement in the weather.”

“Great,” I sigh. “How were your days?”

“Fine,” Tobias says.

“Not as exciting as yours,” Eric says.

“Our day was great!” Gipsy says, dropping his try onto the table next to my brother and throwing himself into a seat. “Starshine here nailed some rat in the face with neon blue paint.”

“Starshine?” my brother asks.

“Finally ran into Harold?” Eric leans over and asks me quietly as Gipsy explains to Four about my new nickname.

“Yeah,” I smile. “He’s doing pretty well, considering. He said he’d meet me tomorrow, too.”

“I’m glad,” he says, absently running his thumb over the band of my bracelet.

“You two are disgusting,” Bandit says as he and Tank join us.

“You’re just jealous,” Tank says, “that it’s not you.”

“Maybe if you were prettier, Olivia would like you better,” Gipsy says, and Bandit throws a piece of his hamburger in his direction.

“Maybe if you were prettier, _Eric_ would like you better,” Tank says.

“Girls, girls,” I say, fluttering my eyelashes. “There’s no need to fight. You’re both pretty.”

Tank laughs.

***

“What the hell did you put in this sack, Starshine?” Slightly asks as he drops a rucksack from his perch atop the Bus.

“Extra clothes, extra food; stuff like that.”

“For Harold?” Tank asks.

“Yeah. He said he’d meet me where we were yesterday.”

“Don’t stray too far,” Henley says. “Don’t want you lost.”

“And hurry the hell up,” Bandit says.

I tell Bandit exactly where he can put his comments, and sling the bag over my shoulder. Henley tells the others that now would be a good time to break for lunch as I turn down an alley and look for Harold.

***

We get caught in the rain Erudite predicted for the evening, and by the time we get back to the locker room, all eleven of us are soaked through our last layer. We stow our equipment in our own lockers quietly, thankful that the day and the patrol shift is over. I say goodbye to Tank and Henley and wave to everyone else that has become a common face at the end of the day and head back into Dauntless.

I don’t bother to knock when I open Eric’s door. He’s lying on the couch with the lamp turned on and my mother’s book in his hands. He turns his head when the door thumps closed, and takes a moment to watch me stand there and drip on the tile. He tucks a bookmark between the pages and sits up.

“I’ll get a towel,” he says, and I try to ignore the snicker in his voice.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” I say dryly.

I start to shed my layers while Eric tries to find a clean towel in the bathroom. I drop my jacket, thermal, and t-shirt on the floor; I’m working on unlacing my boots when he comes back. Eric drops one towel on top of my head and wraps another around my shoulder before squatting down and untying my laces for me. I toe my boot off when he’s done, and peel my pants off, leaving me in nothing but my underwear. I plant my hands on my head and start to towel dry my hair and Eric rubs me down with the other towel.

He pauses around my waist, wipes the water away from my skin gently, and I feel his fingers ghost over the black ink of my tattoo. Besides my brother, Eric is the only one to have seen it, and I count it among the other things he and I share only with each other.

_i believe in ordinary acts of bravery._

I feel him press a kiss to my ribs and I grin, dropping the towel in my hands onto the pile of wet things on the floor. Eric’s hair is a little longer than he usually keeps it, and I thread my fingers through it while I can; he’ll go for a haircut soon.

“You need a shower,” he murmurs against my skin.

“I know that,” I tell him, “but you have to let me go in order for that to happen.”

He hums and stands, placing a kiss on my shoulder, neck, cheek, my mouth. He pulls away and stands there, just stands there, watching me. I feel my cheeks burn and my mouth go dry; it’s moments like these that I wonder why I keep turning Eric away. He smiles, soft and deep and secret, and turns away to dig around in his dresser. He hands me one of t-shirts, soft, black, and worn out just like the rest of them, and ushers me into the bathroom.

I’m standing under the spray of the shower, rinsing my hair of rainwater and anything else that managed to tangle itself in my braid, when I take notice of the warm humming feeling under my skin. It feels like comfort, and happiness, like a tattoo without the soreness afterwards, and I realize that it feels a little bit like love.

 


	19. somewhere I have never travled,gladly beyond

“Are you off to see Harold again?” Eric asks as I collect packs of crackers from the commissary.

“Just like every other Tuesday this month,” I say, stowing the food in a green duffle.

It’s become a routine, whether or not I’m on the schedule for patrol, I make sure to see Harold once a week; mostly it’s been Tuesdays. The weather has warmed up, melting what little snow we got over the winter, and forcing sprouts of green out of the ground. It’s still pretty cool out, and freezing at night, but I don’t worry so much about Harold finding a warm place to sleep.

“I won’t be gone long,” I tell Eric. “I’m taking the train.”

“Be careful,” he whispers against my lips. “Don’t fall off.”

“I never do.”

He smiles and kisses me a few more times, before insisting that I take another jacket. I won’t tell him that I plan on leaving it with Harold.

***

Harold is already waiting on the platform when I jump and roll from the train car. He claps slowly as I pick myself up and dust off my shirt; I duck down and bow theatrically, slipping the canvas sack off my shoulders in the process. Harold looks healthier than he did a few months ago; his face is a little fuller, and the blue under his eyes says that he might be getting just a little more sleep. I toss him the ruck sack and let him sling it over his own shoulders before we scale down from the train platform and head in whichever direction he chooses.

Having Harold back these last few months has put me almost right. I’m sleeping better even though I wasn’t sleeping badly, and I’ve been able to put on a bit more muscle that what I had at the end of initiation. Tobias and I are on good terms, and Eric and I seem to be connected at the hip sometimes, and everything is just going well. I’ve reached a balance, and it’s a balance I’m very happy with.

We head out towards the edge of Dauntless territory, where Harold has been spending most of his time these days, passed the broken buildings and cracking sidewalks to where the asphalt ends and the grass begins in the mile long stretch between the city and the fence. I flop down on my back, content to lie in the sun and feel the grass like I was never allowed to in Abnegation. Harold joins me, though he doesn’t lie down, and we talk for hours like we never had the time to.

“So,” he says in the middle of a pause.

“Yes, Old Earth?”

“Tell me about the boy.”

“What boy?”

“ _Your_ boy, Starshine.”

I feel a smile split my face so wide my cheeks hurt and a blush burns down my neck. I sit up and let myself be bashful for a moment before I can make my tongue work again.

“His name is Eric,” I say.

Harold rolls his eyes.

“He has to have more than a name, Starshine.”

“He’s a year older than me, and a lot taller than I am. He likes to read, and he likes it when I read, and he’s actually good with babies, and I just…”

“What does he do?”

“Eric is one of the Dauntless leaders,” I say quietly.

I don’t know why I would pick now to be meek about why I like Eric. Harold gives me a sharp look, and a frown tugs at the corners of his mouth, and that surprises me.

“What?” I ask.

“What I’ve heard,” he says, “about the Dauntless leaders do not make me think of them as kind.”

“We’ve talked about this, Harold,” I sigh. “There are a lot of rumors going around, a lot of confusion, and I’m surprised it hasn’t quieted down by now. When winter is over, everyone will realize that this fuss has been over nothing.”

“I’m not talking about food shortages, Olivia,” he says, and that makes me take a good look at him; Harold hasn’t called by my real name since he asked for it the first time we met. “I’m talking about cruelty. Not all of the Dauntless treat factionless like you and your patrol group do; they’re nasty and they hurt us just because they can. They have to learn that from somewhere.”

I open my mouth to say something, to defend the faction that has become the family I never thought I would have, but… something Harold said doesn’t sit right in my gut.

“What do you mean they hurt you?”

He glares at me, mouth down turned, and I can’t decide if he’s mad because I haven’t noticed, or because he thinks he’s smashing the rose colored glasses on my nose. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, violently quiet like I’ve only seen from few people, before pulling at his jackets, stripping them off one by one until he’s wearing as little clothing as I’ve ever seen, even in the middle of summer: boots, a pair of pants, and a long sleeved shirt. He rolls his shirt sleeves back to his elbows, exposing a mottling of bruises in varying stages; reds, pinks, yellows, purples, blues, and greens all mar the skin I can see, and I’d wager they go on even further.

I reach out with a trembling hand, but Harold won’t let me touch him. He pulls away, pushing his sleeves back down until they meet his wrists. My stomach is one big knot, twisting and churning, and I’m just as nauseous as I was when I took that blow to the head during initiation.

“Who did it?” I ask, and I hate that my voice breaks.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “It was Dauntless that did it, and that’s the end of it.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” he asks fussily.

“Why did they do it, and why don’t you think it matters?”

“I told them to leave Millie alone, and they didn’t like it, and it doesn’t matter because there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Millie is a little factionless girl, maybe eleven, whose parents are dead; she survives by floating from group to group and scavenging what she can. When I found out that Harold shuffled her around out of the riots and away from where the most violent of the factionless live, I’d started packing even more food, and some clothing I thought might fit her. I’ve never met her, but Harold is selective about the strays he picks up, so she can’t be that bad.

“I damn well can,” I say, climbing to my feet. “Who were they?”

“I wouldn’t tell you in I knew, Starshine. They’re not for the likes of you to tangle with.”

“If I won’t tangle with them, who will, Old Earth? No one wants the factionless; no one cares if they live or die, but you are the only thing I have ever had resembling a father, and I’ll be gaddamned before I let anything happen to you.”

Harold takes his time pulling his layers back on. By the time he’s on his feet, I’ve worked up a sweat just from the sheer force of my anger. He throws the canvas bag I brought him over his head, and sets both heavy hands on my shoulders.

“You are my daughter,” he says seriously, “and there is nothing in this world than I want more for you than to stay safe and where you belong. Getting into this fight, it’s no good, Olivia; there are more bad Dauntless than there are good, and fighting for factionless is only going to make it worse. Stay out of it.”

“I am Dauntless,” I tell him, waver in my voice, “and I believe in ordinary acts of bravery.”

“There’s not a thing about you that’s ordinary, Starshine.”

In the end, I promise not to go looking for a fight, but also swear that I’ll get to the bottom of unruly patrolees. Harold takes the admission with a sigh. There’s nothing he can do to stop me, so he’s grateful that I’ll try to be careful, but I won’t let the threat of anything turn me away either; Harold is my family, and if I don’t have family, I have nothing.

We spend the rest of my visit walking back to the abandoned apartment building that Harold and Millie have taken a piece of, and discussing the unsettlement in the factionless, and if it could just be caused by uncalled for violence, or if something else is wrong. Harold tells me of the riots he’s seen that I haven’t, about the factionless who have a set routine and don’t vary from it that just disappear, about the whispered vanishing of children.

“Why doesn’t anyone talk about this?” I ask.

“You said it yourself, Starshine. No one cares if the factionless live or die.”

***

The sky is turning towards dusk when Harold convinces me to go home. I’ve been out much longer that I’d planned to, and though they know I can take care of myself, Eric and Tobias both worry. I leave Harold with firm instructions to keep himself and Millie out of view of the patrols, and start my walk back to the train platform.

It’s dark by the time I reach the stilts that hold the platform erect, and I know that it will take me longer to climb up that it did Harold and I to climb down earlier that morning. I feel the vibrations in the steel before I see or hear the train, and I wonder if my schedule has been thrown off; this train is either very early, or very, very late.

It’s neither. The train, when it rounds a bend into my vision, is two cars and an engine. It’s moving much more slowly than any train I’ve ever seen, and the headlamp is dark; no one is sounding the horn to announce its presence. I pause where I am on the support beam, thirty feet off the ground and nowhere near the top, and readjust my grip so I can lean to the side and get a better look at the platform. The cars, when the doors slide open, are packed with people. They’re wearing all black, and don’t bear a faction symbol, but there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re Dauntless.

None of them speak as they hop from the train to the platform and systematically shimmy down the beams on the other end. They fall into formations as they hit the ground, the leader of each platoon marked by a reflective dot on the forehead of their masks; none of them are bare faced. Or weaponless. The march quietly into factionless territory and I wait until I can’t hear their boots on the ground before I drop back to the dirt.

I’m not weighed down by the bag I brought Harold, but I’m also no heavily armed; I’ve got a handgun in the waistband of my pants and a utility knife in my boot. I’m wearing a long sleeved red shirt, and I’m suddenly thankful that Eric insisted I bring a jacket. Dressed in all black with my hair tied down and my hood up, I follow the other Dauntless down the street.

***

By the time I catch up with the squads, they’ve roused dozens of factionless and dragged them into the street. I hang back, squatting down the shadows on a alley, gun ready in my hand. Nothing happens for the longest time but more and more factionless pouring out into the streets. Men, women, and children are shoved together to form their own ranks, confused and scared and angry. One man lashes out, takes a swing at one of the dauntless, but the other figure puts him on the ground hard; I’m not close enough to see if he’s still breathing. The example causes a twitter of panic to crawl through the crowd, but no one else talks back or makes a move to defend themselves.

Eventually the Dauntless have all of the factionless enclosed, and everything falls to an eerily, still quiet. If there is an order given, I don’t hear it, but as one several of the Dauntless move to shove the first line of factionless to their knees. I’m on my feet and striding into the fray before my brain has a second to catch up. My gun is up, but I’m not quick enough to fire before they do.

I scream as the first row collapses to the ground, and I don’t know if it’s my voice or the reality of what’s happening that wakes them up, but the factionless start panicking, pushing and shoving each other and the Dauntless, who automatically raise their weapons to try and finish what they started. My first shot goes wide, but my second and third floor two Dauntless. Several of them focus on me instead of the crowd, and that’s they’re downfall; though the factionless have a bad habit of rioting when they’re restless, if you fight for them, they’ll fight for you back.

There’s a lot of screaming, children crying, and I run out of bullets much too quickly and have to resort to the knife Eric made me bring with me; it takes far too much time to make sure that who I cut stays down, so I have to be content with wounding and throwing them in the fray. It feels like hours, sweat rolling off of my skin, blood splashing its way through my hair, but I can’t stop.

***

It’s a very bloody end to the fight.

Dauntless reinforcements show up quickly, laying waste to the chaos we’ve created. The factionless and I, we don’t stand a chance, no matter how many soldiers we take down. In the end, they’re all dead, and I’m being held on my feet by two dauntless while another checks me over for more weapons. Blood is gushing out of my nose, and I have more than one open wound, from both the Dauntless and the misaimed attacks from the factionless. None of them speak, no matter how many questions I ask, and my the time I’ve been hit in the face twice, I’m tired of asking.

One of them cuffs my hands behind my back, pulling at my shoulders until my joints scream and I’m left in a dizzy heap on the ground. I watch as the Dauntless that aren’t guarding me start to gather up the bodies. I wonder how they plan to hide so many. Face after face, they fling the bodies of children on top of their parents and truck on like they’re gathering firewood for the winter.

My head is pounding, and I can barely see for the blood and the rushing between my ears, but when someone finally starts to speak I try to sit up and listen. I’m shoved back to the ground with a hard boot on my chest.

“I never though you would be this much trouble.”

I try to blink away the blood, and am not really successful, but through the red haze I can make out a familiar face leaning over me.

“Max?” I ask around a busted lip.

“You’ve been trying my patience, Olivia,” he says conversationally, like he’s not just lead the attack on several dozen defenseless factionless. There is blood on his gloves, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He pats my cheek. “When you first came to Dauntless, I didn’t think you’d make it a week.”

I flinch away from him, but he continues like I never moved.

“And you surprised us all. We thought you were just scrappy; Abnegation trying to run with the big dogs after a lifetime of being told what to do. And then you started winning.” He frowns. “You started beating all of the Dauntless we’d worked so hard to raise, and you didn’t care.”

He stands back up, motioning the Dauntless at my sides to pull me out of the dirt. My head explodes as I’m righted and my stomach fights to make its way out of my throat.

“I tried to help you make the right choices,” he says pleadingly. “I wanted you to be one of us. But this,” he grabs my face in his hand and jerks my head back. “Olivia, this is unforgivable.”

“If being one of you,” I spit, “means murdering children in the street, I don’t want to be.”

“This is ridding the world of what does not belong,” he says calmly, like I’m a simple child that must be catered to. “The factionless have no place in our government or our economy; they are a weight we cannot continue to bear. No matter what you are led to believe, Olivia, we are doing what we can to make this world better.”

_“We believe that cowardice is to blame for the world’s injustices.”_

“Very good,” he says approvingly. “Past generations have been cowardly in removing this injustice upon the rest of us.”

_“We believe that peace is hard-won, that sometimes it is necessary to fight for peace. But more than that: We believe that justice is more important than peace.”_

He nods his head.

_“We believe in freedom from fear, in denying fear the power to influence our decisions.”_

“And what do you believe, Olivia?” he asks softly. “What do you make of this mess?”

_“I believe in ordinary acts of bravery.”_

Max lashes out at me at the same time that I lift my foot to plant it in his chest. We fall away from each other, but I don’t waste any time trying to get my bearings. I roll away from the other Dauntless as fast as I can and struggle to get my feet under me, off balanced and dizzy. I hear Max shouting, and I hear several gun shots, and I can’t feel my feet or the way my head is pounding.

 


	20. epilogue: my heart fell dead before

Watching the slaughter at Abnegation, I feel numb. Erudite has taken over Dauntless, made them slaves without thought or feeling. It’s a hard scene to watch, but I make myself. It’s all so fast, the fighting, and the screaming; they’d haunt my dreams if I still had them. Eric is among those uninfected with the control serum, and my heart aches when I think about what he’s been through in the last year, what he’s done, who he’s become. He is as ruthless and cruel as Dauntless could have hoped for.

My brother has changed; he isn’t the man I saw him becoming before this war started. He’s quiet, and he drinks too much, and he can’t stand the company of others. Some nights I expect to find him on the edge of the chasm, daring to walk the line that has killed so many before. There is a new initiate taken with him, and from the laughs she’s startled from him before she may just be what he needs. But now isn’t the time to focus on getting better; we’re too far down in our own hells.

***

When they bring him into Candor’s interrogation room, Eric is cradling his left side, but he doesn’t fight them. I can see the way his hands tremble even from the other side of the room, and the sweat on his face makes him seem ill. I’ve never seen him in worse condition. The other Dauntless file in, keeping their distance from him, traitor that he is, but I can feel them acknowledge that he could have been the best of us.

There’s a storm raging outside, rain pounding against the windows and thunder booming so lough it’s nearly impossible to hear. I drift away from the wall, into the crowd, closer to what will most likely be Eric’s last moments. There’s a strange undercurrent running through everyone, sharp and wild, untamed like every Dauntless was raised to be, even when they came to us from somewhere else. Several people whisper around me, but I pay them no attention.

When Tobias and Tris enter the room, Tori steps up onto the platform and holds up her hand for quiet. Tobias and Tris join her.

“Would you like me to tell you your crimes?” she asks. “Or would you like to list them yourself?”

A grin splits Eric’s lip, pulling at the piercing that’s remained, but it falls flat. He scans the crowd, and his eyes settle on Tris. He settles his hands over his stomach, like he actually has the ability to protect himself in the state he’s in.

“I want her to list them,” he says. “Since she’s the one who stabbed me, she’s obviously familiar with them.”

“Leave her out of this,” Tobias says firmly.

“Why? Because you’re doing her? Or because you know she doesn’t have the guts?”

If I had any breath, it would rattle in my chest.

“You conspired with Erudite,” she says sharply. “You are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Abnegation. You betrayed Dauntless. You shot a child in the head. You are a ridiculous plaything of Jeanine Matthews.”

“Do I deserve to die?” he asks quietly, reverently.

I can see Tobias open his mouth to answer, but Tris beats him to it.

“Yes,” she says.

“Fair enough,” he says, eyes blank and lifeless. “But do you have the right to decide that, Beatrice Prior? Like you decided the fate of that other boy – what was his name? Will?”

“Did you have the right you decide Olivia’s fate?” Tobias asks suddenly, and the room falls deathly quiet.

I can see Tank and Henley from where I am in the room; Tank is crying. No one else from 209 is alive. I run my hand through my hair, and curse at my brother in every way I can for bringing me into this. Eric sits up in the interrogation chair even though it obviously pains him, fury in his eyes and a snarl twisting his lips.

“You listen to me, Tobias Eaton,” he growls. “I had nothing to do with Olivia’s death, and – ”

“You liar!” Tank shouts from the crowd. “We found her hanging from the goddamn platform, brains blown out, children dead in the street! I sh – ” She stops and gags, trying to keep herself from throwing up in the middle of a crowded room; Henley pulls her close and buries his face in her hair.

“I had nothing to do with Olivia’s death,” Eric says again, calm and drained and tired, “and if I had, I’d have shot myself long before this became inevitable.”

“That’s enough,” Tori says, voice cracking. “We’re not here about Olivia’s death; we’re here to judge Eric’s role in the destruction of Abnegation and the betrayal of Dauntless. We can’t prove anything else.”

“You have committed every crime that warrants execution among the Dauntless,” Tobias says dully. “We have the right to execute you under the laws of Dauntless.”

Tobias takes the gun from his waistband; he doesn’t bother with the ceremony of three guns and a chance to live. When Eric realizes what’s finally going to happen, he relaxes. His shoulders slump, and he stops trying to be so protective of the wound in his abdomen.

“Do you have anything else to say,” my brother asks, “before I put this bullet in your brain?”

“Your mother’s book is in the top drawer of my dresser,” he says quietly enough that I almost can’t hear him.

For the first time since this war began, I see Tobias’s hand shake.

“She wanted you to have it if she didn’t make it out of initiation.”

“Be brave, Eric,” Tobias says, cocking the gun in his hand.

“For Olivia,” Eric says.

***

I stay in the interrogation room for a long time after the rest of Dauntless files out, running and hollering for one of the few ‘victories’ they’ve been allowed the past few weeks. They leave Eric’s body. If you can ignore the spot of blood on his forehead, he looks more peaceful than I’ve seen him in a year. The lines have relaxed out of his face, and he doesn’t look like he has a personal vendetta against the world anymore. It takes hours for Candor to come back to the halls they gave to Dauntless. When they discover Eric, they merely sigh and cover him with a sheet, respect for a dead man who was nothing to them.

Eric’s hand is warm in mine, and he’s the most real thing I’ve ever felt. We don’t look at one another, simply content to enjoy what we’ve missed for so long.

“It’s weird,” he says softly.

“It is,” I agree, “but only for a little while.”

“I mourned you.”

“And I mourned you.”

“I just died,” he says as if he doesn’t understand what complicated people we can be.

“I mourned for who and what you could have been,” I say gently. “There is no harder struggle than watching a love one kill themselves slowly.”

“That was kind of my plan,” he says. “There was no point after we found your body.”

“Of course there was.”

“You are the one good thing I’ve done in my entire life,” he says.

I have to turn and look at him.

“It’s done now.”

“It is,” he agrees.

“I love you,” I say, turning away from the cooling corpse that has nothing for either of us now. “Let’s go home.”

“Yeah. Home.”

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know quite a few of you are upset by the ending of this fic, and a few more of you have pointed out the parallels between Olivia and Tris (Abnegation, first jumper, almost being thrown into the chasm, first in her initiation class), but this was never meant to be a romance. 
> 
> This is an origin story. 
> 
> This is an ode to what Eric could have been if he hadn’t been killed off in the second book. This is teenage romance gone as awry as it possible can. This is hope and fear, anger and abandonment. This is exactly what it was meant to be: upsetting. You all came to read this story because you found the same thing I did in Eric; you found someone who does not fit the construct of the society they live in, and you have identified with him. He is what we are all afraid to be: alone, upset, controlled to an extent we don’t realize, and in dire need of someone. That someone may never understand, may never grasp why or what we are, but they are there and they love us anyway. By coming to this story and identifying not only with Eric, but with Olivia, you have each become that person someone else needed. You decided somewhere in your mind that this character, this awful human being too easily disposed of had to have had a reason. And I applauded you.
> 
> As for all of the reviews calling for more or different endings, you’re in for some luck. In my haste to finish this project so I could move on to something else, I’ve left a few plotlines unfinished. I’m not going to rewrite the entire story because it is exactly as it should be, however unintentionally it came to be that way; it is rushed, hurried, and, if I’m judging this correctly, it left you, my readers, with an unfinished feeling, with questions. I can’t promise when, but when my work allows me the time, I plan on tying up some of those loose ends. I’ll post them under a different cut with directions and comments for each chapter, and I’ll update this again to give you the title when I have one.  
> Farewell and good fortunes and I hope to see you again,
> 
> Chelsea

**Author's Note:**

> So, this comes about from a text message fight I had with one of my friends over the merits of Eric's character, which pretty much consisted of her believing that Eric could be no deeper than what was given to us because "this isn't Harry Potter and things don't work that way". I understand that nothing in my lifetime will come close to trumping what the Harry Potter series has given us, but I refuse to believe that we can't have characters deeper than the paper they were printed on in other works of literature.
> 
> Generally speaking, the bad guy is almost always my favorite character, so I was pretty upset with what happened to Eric in the middle of Insurgent, even though I totally agree that he deserved it. That being said, I have a few theories about why he did what he did that don't boil down to him just being cruel. And I wrote him a bit of a love interest to go with it. 
> 
> I hope she doesn't turn out too Mary Sue, and someone point it out if that happens, but I'm not looking to change the out come of the series (I've yet to get a hold of Allegiant, and I swear to sweet Jesus if someone ruins it I will go postal and make national news). The plan is for this fic to take place from the year before Tris switches to Dauntless through the end of Insurgent, maybe further if that's how things work out.
> 
> I've enjoyed your support of the rest of my works, and I hope this one is just as approved of.


End file.
